Table of Contents
Athletes Unlimited PRO Basketball
On today’s edition of “Where can I watch my fav players because there might not be a WNBA season?”, it is time for the AU Edition!
AU Pro Basketball is set to tip off on Wednesday, February 4th, for its 5th season and its second season in Nashville. All games will be on ESPN and WNBA League Pass.
What is AU?
Athletes Unlimited is a “professional sports organization” that has 4 different leagues: Basketball, Volleyball, and Softball. For all leagues, there are no team owners, and league investors cap their returns. Athletes share in the league profits and are involved in the daily decision-making.
Key Investors: Kevin Durant, Owner of the Sixers, Nike
Unlike Unrivaled, AU Pro Basketball is uplifted by the WNBA. Meaning you will see the WNBA posting about AU and AU games are broadcast for free on WNBA League Pass. I believe this is because the timeline for AU specifically makes sure that players are in the US and done with offseason commitments before the start of training camp. And of course, it does not advertise itself as an alternative to the league the way Unrivaled and Project B do.
Format
AU is a 5×5 basketball league where players are drafted each week to new teams by team captains. There are 40 players total. There is no TEAM winner at the end of the season, but individual winners. The season is only 4 weeks long, so it goes by fast!
Past Champions: Maddy Siegrest (2025), Allisha Gray (2024), NaLyssa Smith (2023), Tianna Hawkins (2022)
Players earn scores, and you will see players moving up and down the leaderboard throughout games.
Athletes earn points in three ways:
When their team wins a game or quarter
When they make a positive play on the court, they may lose points for a negative play or error.
When they are voted one of the top 3 MVPs of a game by players and fans.
Captains
Each week, there will be four captains who will draft their new teams. The captains also have the ultimate authority over the teams’ lineups, in-game decisions, and practice plans. They also have a coach to collaborate with, and they are referred to as facilitators.
For the 2025 season, Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball will be enacting a new captain process to increase the opportunity for players to serve as captains.
The new selection process is as follows:
Week One: Captains will be randomly selected from the pool of returning players who have opted into the lottery. These players have experience in the AU system and understand what it takes to be a leader on the court.
Weeks Two and Three: Captains will be determined by the top four point-earners on the weekly leaderboard. Previously, the cumulative leaderboard determined the captains for these weeks.
Champions Week (Week Four): Captains will be the top four point-earners from the season leaderboard.
Teams
In the past, teams were just colors (blue, gold, orange etc), this year they have been given names! Gold Rush, Glow, Rhythm, Eclipse. I think this is a fun way to bring a sense of identity to teams and to sell merch.
WNBA- AU Connections
WNBA Team | Players |
|---|---|
Atlanta Dream | Te-Hina Paopao |
Chicago Sky | Ariel Atkins, Kia Nurse |
Connecticut Sun | Aneesah Morrow, Tina Charles, Bria Hartley |
Dallas Wings | Grace Berger |
Golden State Valkyries | Kaitlyn Chen |
Indiana Fever | Brianna Turner, Bree Hall, Aerial Powers, Shey Peddy, Odyssey Sims |
Las Vegas Aces | Aaliyah Nye, Kiah Stokes, NaLyssa Smith, Kierstan Bell |
LA Sparks | Sarah Ashlee Barker, Emma Cannon |
Minnesota Lynx | Jaylyn Sherrod |
New York Liberty | Rebekah Gardner, Izzy Harrison |
Phoenix Mercury | Natasha Mack |
Seattle Storm | Lexie Brown, McKenzie Forbes, Zia Cooke |
Washington Mystics | Jacey Sheldon, Alysha Clark |
WNBA CBA UPDATE
On February 2nd, 2026, the WNBPA and WNBA had their first in-person meeting since October, and here are the key takeaways:
Who attended:
League:
→ Cathy Engelbert, members of the labor relations committee, and other team owners.
→ The labor relations committee is made up of seven team owners and executives from the Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, Phoenix Mercury, and Seattle Storm.
→ New York Liberty owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, as well as Storm co-owner Sue Bird, also attended in person.
(You see how all the broke owners are front and center????)
Players:
→ Nneka Ogwumike was joined at the league office by vice president Alysha Clark, treasurer Brianna Turner, and Stefanie Dolson.
→ Joining via Zoom were vice presidents Kelsey Plum, Napheesa Collier, and Breanna Stewart, along with secretary Elizabeth Williams, who dialed in from overseas while playing in Turkey. More than 40 additional players also joined via Zoom.
What happened
The WNBA did not prepare a counterproposal to the WNBPA’s December proposal. As a fan, this is extremely frustrating. The league ignored the players for months and then showed up unprepared for a meeting that players took time out of their lives to attend. SMH.
Even more concerning, ESPN reported that the league is proposing a $5 million salary cap and only 13% revenue sharing. This is HORRIBLE!! That is only a 4% increase in revenue sharing. The salary cap proposal also feels impossible if the league plans to introduce $1 million supermax contracts. That would mean one player takes up one-fifth of the entire cap?? Make it make sense!!
And remember: unlike the NBA, the WNBA has a hard salary cap. There is no “go over the cap and just pay the tax” option
Below are some of the materials that the WNBA presented to the players. Here are my fast and unserious thoughts:
Free WNBA League Pass? its $35, why were they not getting this
Free All-Star tickets for all players?? Imagine having to pay to get into the middle school gym the Sky hosted the 2021 All-Star game in
A “mobile medical records app” - Chile, sounds like my job offering up nothing as something
Elimination of marijuana testing… but also a new marijuana treatment program?? They are STILL testing for weed????
50% of fine money donated to pre-selected charities??? “Oh yeah, so now you can help me with my tax deductible in addition to getting fined.”
The players’ top priorities remain:
Revenue sharing (30% of the gross)
Housing
Retirement benefits
Minimum standards for facilities
Addressing the “splintered” narrative
Ahead of the meeting, an ESPN article claimed the executive committee (Nneka, Phee, Stewie, KP, Bri Turner, Elizabeth Williams, and Alysha Clark) was splintered, with some members wanting to hold out for major wins and others wanting to sign a deal ASAP. Alysha Clark quickly shut that down.
I don’t think there’s been fracturing,” Alysha Clark told FOS. “As the EC, the point of our job is to have these tough conversations behind closed doors with one another. To be able to hash through it all, because it’s a lot. It’s complicated. There are so many things that are on the table in this proposal and us having discussions doesn’t equate to fracturing.”
Stewie and Sophie Cunningham give really interesting player perspectives of CBA negotiations and the meeting itself. Really worth the watch.
Ultimately, I think it’s a slap in the face that the WNBA showed up to this CBA meeting unprepared. They are dangling schedule releases, announcing preseason games, and taking money out of my account every month for season tickets, but somehow could not put together a response to the WNBPA’s proposal they received back in December?
I am going to put on my tin foil hat for a second. My theory is that the WNBA is relying on anti-labor sentiment and sexism from the public to turn fan support against the players. They are rolling out games and releasing tickets to build excitement so fans pressure players to get a CBA done, while simultaneously using ESPN and other outlets to muddy the waters with narratives like “the players are fracturing” or “the league will go into a bajillion dollars of debt if we pay people fairly.”
I want a season. Badly. But I do not think it is worth the cost of continuing to undervalue the players and their contributions to this league and its growth.
Offseason News and Chisme
Check out some of the cool podcasts, videos, reads, and fashion I saw this week.
