The weekend of the WNBA All-Star Game, fans of the league had the unique opportunity of watching, for the first time in prime-time television, a 3×3 women’s basketball game, as Team USA took on the U23 squad in a pre-Olympic scrimmage in-between the Skills Challenge and the 3-Point Tournament. As Ryan Ruocco and Rebecca Lobo narrated the different rules of 3×3, like the 10-minute running clock and 12-second shot clock, perhaps most of the audience, both at Footprint Center and at home, learned something completely new that day. But not Alanna McDonald, Co-Founder and President of the recently announced 3×3 Basketball Association (3XBA).
“I’ve been working on pro women’s 3×3 development for about 7 years … I built out the first pro women’s 3×3 teams in the US as part of a pilot program within the WNBA Seattle Storm front office,” McDonald told The Next. “It became abundantly clear that there was high demand from players for expanded options like this, but in order to continue that growth we needed quality event infrastructure.”
3XBA describes itself as “a professional women’s FIBA 3×3 league and development program dedicated to transforming the landscape of women’s basketball” focused on expanding professional opportunities for women and fostering a 3×3 ecosystem in the United States. Their inaugural tournament is set for August 10-11 at the Sports Academy at The Star in Frisco, Texas, with a prize pool of $50,000. 12 players have already committed to the invitational, including regulars in the 3×3 circuit such as Camille Zimmerman and Blake Dietrick.
One of 3XBA’s most prominent endorsers, Cierra Burdick, a three-time gold medalist with Team USA 3×3, is playing right now in her first Olympics and plans on participating of tournaments in the future.
“I think what excites me most about 3xBA is its potential. We have the chance to further introduce the 3×3 game to a country that is wild about women’s basketball right now,” said Burdick to The Next. “The timing couldn’t be better. We’ll create more opportunities for women to compete, while also helping the 3×3 game grow globally.”
How 3XBA sees the 3×3 opportunity
The WNBA has been on a record-shattering streak for almost every single marketing and viewership metric since the start of the season, including the 2024 All-Star Game, which checked in at 3.44 million viewers, peaking at more than 4 million. Still, year after year, hundreds of talented players are met with no option but going overseas to fulfill their hoops dreams.
McDonald, who earned an M.A. in International Migration Studies from the British university of Kent in Brussels and played volleyball both in the collegiate and professional level, had a unique perspective on the that issue. With professional opportunities for female athletes being limited to 144 roster spots in the United States, as well as the high cost and complicated logistics that involve launching a new WNBA franchise, she realized that 3×3 would be a perfect, more immediate, and less costly way of bridging that gap.
“WNBA expansion is one way we’re working to tackle this issue, but that’s a very gradual, costly process, so additional solutions are needed,” McDonald said. “FIBA 3×3 is now an Olympic sport, so global development of this format is not only necessary, but also inevitable. National teams will always need an elite talent pool to draw from, but players need to be specifically trained for that format because it’s so different from 5×5.”
With her contacts and expertise, McDonald knew that there was a lot of potential in her vision, but a key factor was impeding the project from coming to fruition: lack of funding. That’s when Arlan Hamilton, an investor and the Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that aims to level the playing field for minority owners, stepped in and embraced 3XBA, even before it was called that. In fact, Hamilton had expressed interest in investing in a WNBA franchise, but the idea of starting a league from scratch was more appealing.
“I wanted to get involved with a WNBA team for a while and spoke to several owner clubs over a one-and-a-half-year period. Ultimately, I felt that building a pro development league from the ground up with Alanna, Holly [Anderson Levow, 3XBA Co-Founder], and Lakin [Roland, 3XBA General Manager and Head of Operations], was the best way to make the biggest impact,” Hamilton told The Next.
“Personally, launching and investing in women’s sports is a no-brainer for me. It’s about boosting representation and creating opportunities from the ground up. The 3X3 format is innovative and aligns with my mission to support underestimated talent,” she continued.
Arlan Hamilton is one of the many venture capitalists who have added professional women’s sports to their portfolio recently. In fact, six of the “top 13 founders of women’s sports” according to Business Insider are VCs or individuals who made a fortune by operating VCs. Not included in the April story are Willow Bay and Bob Iger, the newly announced Controlling Owners of Angel City Football Club, where Hamilton holds season tickets and a has a professional relationship with the executives.
“I spoke with Willow and Bob at an Angel City game a couple of weeks ago and could tell what huge fans they were. I honestly felt like there was a childlike excitement from both of them,” said Hamilton, who explained to The Next what makes women’s sports such an attractive investment.
“Venture Capitals are seeing the massive potential in women’s sports because of the growing audience, increased media coverage, and the passionate, engaged fanbase that continues to expand.”
More investment means more opportunities
3XBA is one of two new women’s basketball leagues in the United States backed by venture capitalists. Unrivaled Basketball, set to tip off on January 25, is also based on the 3×3 format, although with significant differences. The league was created by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, funded by Alex Morgan’s Tribe Venture alongside a large group of investors.
Unrivaled play format differs from the FIBA 3×3 model, the one followed by 3XBA, in court dimensions, plus game duration and system. While the official FIBA 3×3 game is held on a 49 by 36-feet court (half of a 5×5 court), Unrivaled will stage games on a compressed full-court (70 by 50 feet). Furthermore, FIBA dictates that 3×3 games are 10-minute long with a 12-second shot-clock, with no breaks after scoring, no half-time and no quarters. Unrivaled, on the other hand, will feature contests played in a 1-hour broadcast window, with four quarters of play.
In addition, by abiding to FIBA rules, players who participate in 3XBA tournaments will accrue points in the FIBA ranking, which help qualify the United States and opens athlete eligibility to compete in international tournaments such as Olympics. That puts 3XBA and Unrivaled and opposite ends of the 3×3 spectrum, with each complementing the other in terms of marketing opportunity for players.
“We have a really positive, symbiotic relationship with leagues like Athletes Unlimited and Unrivaled. They provide opportunities during the winter, which allows American players to play at home instead of going overseas to make a living,” McDonald said. “We provide expanded opportunities to more athletes during the summer. We are working to fill different but equally important gaps in our women’s basketball ecosystem, and the athletes need and deserve both options!”