\n<\/p>\n
“Player Partner. Owner: Awa Fam<\/strong>“. With that message, the same one he has used for the rest of his signings<\/em>the incorporation of the jewel of Spanish basketball to Project B was announced on social networks, a new competition and a new business model that will be developed in a world circuit format<\/strong> with many unknowns still to be resolved.<\/p>\n And for now the only details about this league are the names of 13 players <\/strong>and two cities that will host the inaugural season of this league in the first months of next year, in a sport that is at a turning point<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At a time when it was precisely expected to know the fate of Awa Fam in the imminent draft<\/em> of the WNBA and just after closing an agreement between the players’ union and the North American league to improve your conditions <\/strong>labor, what arrived this Wednesday was the news that the Valencia Basket center will enroll in Project B. <\/p>\n The transfer carousel of this Project B<\/em> It started last November, with the WNBA contract negotiations <\/strong>stagnant, and he did it with a symbol like Nneka Ogwumike, president of the players’ association (WNBPA). <\/p>\n With his ascendancy over the basketball players in the best league in the world – which this coming season will multiply the minimum salary by four -, Nneka opened the door to championship referents like Alyssa Thomas<\/strong>. It was another operation full of intention; because the sensational passer is also one of the claims of Unrivaled<\/strong>the 3×3 tournament that in its second edition has filled the gap in the off-season<\/em> of the WNBA with many of its figures.<\/p>\n In 2027, Alyssa Thomas will fill that time – and her pocket – with a completely different project such as Project B, which faces the challenge of attracting younger talents <\/strong>of the WNBA than these two veterans, starting with megastar Caitlin Clark. <\/p>\n At the moment, in addition to the aforementioned Ogwumike, Thomas and Fam – this one with a promising future at 19 years old -, the other confirmed ones are the Bahamian Jonquel Jones, the Brazilian Kamilla Cardoso, Chinese Li Meng, French Janelle Sala\u00fcn, German Leonie Fiebich <\/strong>–also from Valencia Basket–, the Lithuanian Just\u0117 Jocyt\u0117 –now at Uni Girona–, Japanese Mai Yamamoto <\/strong>and the Americans Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Mitchell and Sophie Cunningham.<\/p>\n The vast majority are linked to the WNBA and many They will be able to make the two competitions compatible <\/strong>since Project B is scheduled to start in November and end in April, just the period in which the ‘women’s NBA’ rests… although with very tight times. <\/p>\n The change will affect those that until now played in Europe, because Project B overlaps with the calendar of their competitions. Thus, now the stars of world basketball will be tempted to enroll full-time in this calendar of projects led by North American basketball, which may mean a hard blow for Eurolig<\/strong>a.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With a website that greets in 11 languages, but that at the moment does not offer any information about the competition, the details of Project B must be sought in the statements offered by its managers, mainly the head of basketball. Alana Beard<\/strong>. And what the WNBA legend is placing the most emphasis on, in addition to the global approach, is creating an attractive “experience” in the cities that host the competition. And although she does not talk about luxury, the first agreements announced are along those lines. <\/p>\n In fact, Project B’s organizational chart already has a high position as Chief Lifestyle Officer<\/em><\/strong>something like the person in charge of the style of the players and the competition; as well as a VIP relations manager.<\/p>\n In an interview on the program No Offseason <\/em>of The Atletic<\/em>Beard puso el Formula 1 example <\/strong>and how cities <\/strong>in which automobile competition ends are “takes” <\/strong>during the days of the Grand Prix for that traveling ‘circus’. In addition, he said that his intention is to “create global superstars” with the players, who “are also brands and deserve remuneration in line with their value.” Hence also offer them to be shareholders of the business<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Alana Beard – who a decade ago played a season at Perfumer\u00edas Avenida – also gives as a recurring example the tennis<\/strong>first because of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe world circuit, but also because it is one of the cases where there is the smallest gender gap in salaries. “Eight of the ten highest-paid athletes are tennis players and our model is no different from that of the WTA,” he told the podcast. Good Game <\/em>by Sarah Spain.<\/p>\n Likewise, they have given many clues as to what the promoters of Project B intend, Grady Burnett y Geoffrey Prentice<\/strong>. The first, who became a professional tennis player in the 90s, has served as senior executive at Meta and Google<\/strong>. The second was a co-founder of Skype and repeats the alliance he had in that popular internet telephone company with the background luxembourgish <\/strong>Mangrove Capital Partners. The participation of VILLAGES<\/strong>the great company for the promotion of sporting events in saudi capital<\/strong>; which has brought, among many others, the Spanish Super Cup to the Arab petromonarchy.<\/p>\n And logically, with the profile of these actors, the new league is preparing a communication and marketing strategy focused on social networks and advertising platforms. streaming<\/em>. “In short: until now, the public was forced to attend the action. It’s time to change the rules of the game and bring the action to the public<\/strong>“, the promoters have said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Anyway, the question is whether Project B will also launch a men’s competition. It is the purpose that the spokespersons have insistently repeated, repeating the example of the tennis circuit, where the usual thing is for the events to be held at the same time. men’s (ATP) and women’s (WTA) tournaments<\/strong>. For this objective, the work of Maverick Carter, financial partner of Lebron James<\/strong> and who acts as an advisor on this project.<\/p>\n Of course, we must not forget the movements that are taking place in this field with the intended landing of the NBA in Europe with the help of the international federation, FIBA; and now also in negotiations with the Euroleague. And in any case, the handicap that seems insurmountable in this case is that of unifying in time the eventual male competition of Project B with the female one. And this because the NBA schedule<\/strong>considered the best league in the world, runs from October to June.<\/p>\n Project B hopes to have six teams made up of 11 players in its first season, which implies that there will be 66 basketball players<\/strong> involved in a competition. Beyond that, it is not known how these teams will be configured in any sense. The competition format is also unknown, although they have announced that it will initially be developed in six phases in as many cities (with the intention of expanding to eight in the second campaign).<\/p>\n The only confirmed venues are Valencia<\/strong>which will host the matches at the new Roig Arena from March 12 to 21, 2027<\/strong> –in the middle of Fallas, in another example of the organizers’ ambition–; and Tokio<\/strong>who will take over a few days later. Furthermore, the South China Morning Post<\/a><\/em> has reported that there will be a stopover in a Chinese megalopolis.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Player Partner. Owner: Awa Fam“. With that message, the same one he has used for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A calendar incompatible with the Euroleague<\/h2>\n
Brands, fashion and social networks<\/h2>\n
And a men’s competition?<\/h2>\n
\n Six teams and six venues<\/strong>
\n <\/h2>\n<\/header>\n