WNBA Explained: Professional women’s basketball is headed to Nashville, thanks to Athletes Unlimited

Los Angeles Sparks guard Lexie Brown, the chair of Athletes Unlimited’s player executive committee, sat down with SB Nation for an exclusive conversation about the future of the league.

When Lexie Brown won the 2021 WNBA championship with the Chicago Sky, she didn’t have much time to celebrate. That’s because less than a week later, the Duke standout had to go overseas to play professional basketball in France.

“It was kind of a bummer because that’s a moment that’s rare,” Brown told SB Nation. “I don’t know if I’ll ever win a championship again, and I barely remember winning it and being able to really let that moment sink in.”

Brown’s quick turnaround after the conclusion of the WNBA playoffs was not unusual — historically, most WNBA players have headed overseas to play professional basketball in the offseason, both for supplementary income and basketball experience.

Brown, whose one-year contract with the Sky amounted to just over $47,000, was no exception.

She had been waived by the Minnesota Lynx earlier that season and was well aware of the reality that her future in the WNBA was uncertain, so she hoped that a standout season with the Charnay Basket Bourgogne Sud basketball club in France would open the door to future opportunities in the W.

That didn’t end up being the case. Despite averaging more than 20 points in the EuroLeague, Brown didn’t hear from any WNBA teams. She missed her family and regretted leaving money on the table from off-court opportunities.

“I was just kind of like, ‘What am I still even doing over here?’” she said.

Something needed to change — and a new basketball league just getting established in the US happened to be the answer.

Athletes Unlimited (AU) is a month-long one-month women’s professional basketball league that launched in 2022, allowing WNBA players to stay in the US and develop as basketball players. (It’s completely different from Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 basketball league getting started next month in Miami).

Athletes Unlimited, which uses a complex point system to crown an individual champion at the end of each season (more on that later), reached out to Brown ahead of its inaugural season to gauge her interest in participating. However, her agent strongly advised her to go overseas.

The following year, Brown fired her agent and followed her gut, playing in Athletes Unlimited’s 2023 season in Dallas rather than going to Europe.

It’s a decision she views as life-changing.

“It really changed the trajectory of my career,” Brown said. “I really was feeling lost as a pro, not really knowing where my confidence went, where my role was going to be in this league.”

Today, she serves as the chairperson of the league’s Player Executive Committee, where she works to recruit other WNBA players to the league she views as so personally revitalizing.

How Athletes Unlimited crowns an individual champion

Athletes Unlimited features 40 women’s basketball players who compete in regular 5-on-5 basketball games three times a week. But while the product on the floor might look like regular team basketball, the scoring system is quite different from your average basketball league.

Athletes Unlimited maintains a running leaderboard that tallies points for each player; players earn points for team success (such as their team winning a game or a quarter) as well as for individual success (like scoring, assisting, or rebounding).

Players also gain points if fans and other players vote them as one of the MVPs of a particular game. Conversely, they lose points for negative plays, like missed shots, turnovers, or fouls.

At the end of each week, the top four players with the most points become captains, and captains draft new teams each week, so fans constantly get to see different combinations of players together. And, while at the end of the season, the player with the most overall points is crowned the AU champion, the scoring system is carefully crafted to incentivize team basketball, rather than ball-hogging.

“We have formulas in place that make sure that the individual points, and the team points, are weighted in a way where one person can’t just decide to take the game over, shoot up all the shots, pull all the points, and expect to be at the top of the leaderboard,” Brown said.

In addition to the unique point system, AU is different from other basketball leagues in that it is player-led, without any coaches or front-office members. And, because players constantly switch teammates, the league fosters a sense of camaraderie.

“Everything is very intimate and very family-oriented,” Brown said. “That’s the main thing that I personally sell — you’re never going to have an environment like this, anywhere else at the professional level. You have to come and experience it to believe me. Something about not having a front office, not having a coach, not having a coaching staff, not having the weird politics that go on in professional sports, makes this a very free-flowing, fun, high-energy genre of basketball. And I think that’s something that the women’s game needs.”

This year, the season will run from Feb. 5 to March 2 and feature WNBA players like Kierstan Bell (Las Vegas Aces), Alysha Clark (Aces), Sydney Colson (Aces), Isabelle Harrison (Chicago Sky), Elizabeth Williams (Sky), Jordan Horston (Seattle Storm), Kia Nurse (Sparks), Alissa Pilli (Minnesota Lynx), and Maddy Siegrist (Dallas Wings). Participating athletes will earn a minimum of $20,000 for the five-week season, which can increase to $50,000 with bonuses.

“We’ve had players come in AU and have All-Star seasons the next year,” Brown said. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think that’s because of the energy and confidence that they’ve gained while they play.”

Last year, Atlanta Dream guard Allisha Gray was the Athletes Unlimited champion. That means she accrued more total points than any other player in the league, and was awarded a medal and a commemorative portrait. Just a few months later, she became an All-Star for the first time.

Brown recently finished her seventh year in the WNBA, averaging 8.1 points and 3.3 assists per game for the Los Angeles Sparks.

She attributes a lot of her continued success in the W to Athletes Unlimited.

“It just re-energized me,” Brown said. “I regained the love for the game again.”

Athletes Unlimited is complementary to Unrivaled

For the first time, two professional women’s basketball leagues will take place in the U.S. this winter.

Unrivaled, a new 3-on-3 league co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, will launch next month in Miami and feature at least 34 WNBA players. That league has generated enormous buzz, promising $150,000+ salaries and securing a media partnership with TNT.

While both leagues will run concurrently, Brown doesn’t view them as competition for one another. Instead, she views their collective success as interconnected.

“It benefits us if they’re successful, and it benefits them if we’re successful,” Brown said. “The more women’s basketball is successful as a whole, that’s the goal. That’s the ultimate goal. It’s amazing seeing so many opportunities for players to stay stateside, whether it’s with Athletes Unlimited or Unrivaled.”

Several of Unrivaled’s inaugural players — like Natasha Cloud, Lexie Hull, and Allisha Gray — previously played for Athletes Unlimited. Others, like Alyssa Thomas and Kayla McBride, are swapping their longtime overseas assignments for 3-on-3 basketball in Miami.

Brown is simply glad to see there are more offseason opportunities for women basketball players.

“There are some players playing in Unrivaled that probably weren’t going to come playing Athletes Unlimited anyway, but to be able to be making their mark, and them being as excited as they are for this new women’s league — that makes me happy, that makes me excited for them,” Brown said.

Last year, Athletes Unlimited games were streamed on WNBA League Pass. This season’s broadcast plans haven’t yet been released, but Brown said all games will be very accessible.

Nashville is Athlete Unlimited’s home in 2024

For the past two seasons, Athletes Unlimited took place in Dallas. But this season, the league will have a new home.

“We were a little iffy about moving locations,” Brown said. “We built such a good little community in Dallas the last two seasons.”

But, Nashville — a city that is reportedly interested in ultimately having its own WNBA team — relentlessly recruited AU.

“They made it very, very clear, multiple times,” Brown said. “They were very persistent about how much they wanted women’s professional basketball in the city.”

The recruitment worked — and in turn, Athletes Unlimited is headed to Tennessee.

Brown said that her primary goal for the upcoming Athletes Unlimited season is to increase the visibility of the league. That will lead to higher salaries, which in turn, will help draw in additional players and create more opportunities for existing ones.

“I just want more people to know what Athletes Unlimited is,” Brown said. “I feel like not a lot of people even know that it exists. My goal, as the chairperson of the executive committee, is to make sure that we get as many eyeballs on us as possible this season, because I think this is going to be really special. We’re going to do it big and it’s going to be great basketball, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch.”

This article is the third installment of SB Nation’s new “WNBA Explained” series, a weekly column diving deep into different topics related to women’s basketball. You can read last week’s column about Unrivaled here.