All eyes on WNBA, but Unrivaled looks to build on momentum for next season

Two months before the New York Liberty tip off on their quest for a repeat title, a different group of professional women's basketball players celebrated a championship.

Minutes after leading the Rose Basketball Club to the inaugural Unrivaled championship, Brittney Sykes was the last to enter the postgame news conference. After hitting the winning free throw to clinch the title for the new 3-on-3 league, the Rose guard held the trophy as she jogged up to the podium. The players sat together, bottles of champagne lining the table in between microphones in front of them. They all reached their right hands over their heads in their signature celebration.

"No. 1 in the inaugural season," Kahleah Copper said. "Shout-out to Unrivaled. No. 1.'"

The Rose was the first champion of the new league that played in Miami this winter, a season that was considered a roaring success. And as the team members lifted the Unrivaled trophy over their heads, it signaled the end of the league's first season. But it also marked the start of what comes next.

"Any time you have an inaugural anything, you just have to get that first season under your belt. You've got to get that sample size," Skylar Diggins told ESPN. "I've been a part of a couple of expansion teams, I've been in the [pandemic] bubble. You just have to experience it to know what it's like. Then you start to build."

Co-founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart said Unrivaled's opening season was a success -- from financially to the product on the court and to fan engagement. But now, as the league said to revolutionize the WNBA offseason takes a backseat to its more established counterpart, Unrivaled's stakeholders must figure out how to build on the momentum.

How might the league grow? How could the game look differently in seasons to come? Can Unrivaled continue to draw the WNBA's biggest names and get stars such as Caitlin Clark and A'ja Wilson to sign on? And how might Unrivaled impact the WNBA, and possibly its collective bargaining agreement, going forward?

ESPN looks at the biggest questions facing Unrivaled.

In the days leading up to Unrivaled's first games in mid-January, Collier and Stewart already considered their new league a success.

"Even with no games having been played, the response we've had and the ecosystem we're affecting already without playing, salaries are going up across the board -- overseas, in other domestic leagues, we have our CBA negotiations [in the WNBA] -- I think on that front we feel successful already," Collier said.

The season mostly bore that out. Viewership, attendance and revenue reflected what many inside the league were feeling in Miami -- that Unrivaled was presenting a good product.