When the Unrivaled women’s basketball league launched last winter, it brought numerous benefits to the players involved.
There was the ability to make money playing on home soil during the WNBA offseason, which became even more critical after Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia. And there was a lot of money to make, both in base pay and prizes, thanks to a slew of big-name investors.
There was the fun of playing a three-on-three format. And with games taking place near Miami, there was the chance to spend a few warm weeks in south Florida.
For the 2026 edition, organizers wanted to take it on tour. As they considered venues, Philadelphia became a surprising candidate, and not just because of the different weather.
But a group of well-connected local advocates got to work behind the scenes, and on Thursday their work officially paid off. Xfinity Mobile Arena was announced as Unrivaled’s first tour stop, with two games to be played here on Jan. 30.
The group is led by actor and comedian Wanda Sykes; her wife Alex Sykes, who has experience in the sports and business worlds; and lawyer Ashley Lunkenheimer. They call themselves the Philadelphia Sisters, and they spent years working to get a WNBA expansion team here.
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Their payoff with Unrivaled came from a classically Philadelphian move. The Sykeses are investors in the league, and at one of last season’s games, they were sitting next to commissioner Micky Lawler when she started talking about potential tour sites.
“She mentioned other cities, large cities, around us and did not mention Philadelphia,” said Alex Sykes, a Paris native who has lived here long enough to have picked up local skills. “And we were sitting next to her and said, ‘Hi, how about Philadelphia? Come on, this is the best city in the world.’”
Mayor Parker’s sales pitch
In fact, Sykes had a much bigger sales pitch to offer: She had connections to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a longtime backer of bringing a WNBA team here, plus potential sponsors — and connections at Comcast-Spectacor to get the city’s biggest basketball venue.
“We had all these connections, and that’s what we told Micky and the group,” Sykes said. “Eventually they trusted us to actually have a first tour here, which we did back in May.”
Unfortunately, it was pouring rain that day. But the visitors liked what they saw, which included meetings with Parker and other local stakeholders. By August, word started to get around town that something might be happening.
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“They really rolled out the red carpet,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell said. “The fact that they’re hosting so many marquee events next year in the sports world — whether it be the [men’s soccer] World Cup, or the MLB All-Star Game, PGA Championship, [men’s basketball] NCAA tournament — for us it just became clear that we had such immense support, from Mayor Parker all the way down to the Sports Commission, that when we did this, it was going to be done the right way.”
Lunkenheimer praised Parker’s involvement in the pitch.
“I know that Unrivaled saw that the city, and what we’ve been doing to try to bring the WNBA here, had also built just a huge community of people invested in getting the people of Philadelphia, the children of Philadelphia, the girls of Philadelphia — and the boys — to have professional women’s sports,” she said. “And I do think that [Parker] was able to convey that, and Alex and Wanda and all of us that they met with were able to say, ‘We’re hungry, and you’ll have more to accomplish.’”
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It’s a risk it to take the event to Xfinity Mobile Arena, instead of a smaller venue like the Liacouras Center. But Comcast was on board, and the potential reward is higher if they can make it work.
Star players taking part
There should be no lack of star power on the court. Topping the list of the 48 players across the league’s eight teams are Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier (who’s married to Bazzell), the league’s co-founders. Though Collier has an ankle injury that knocked her out of the WNBA playoffs — and her Minnesota Lynx as a result — she’ll likely be here in some form.
Other big names include Paige Bueckers, Brittney Griner, Arike Ogunbowale, and Chelsea Gray.
Natasha Cloud, Kahleah Copper, and Maddy Siegrist have local ties, and you can be sure they’ve given their fellow players an earful about what it will be like to come here. Copper might arrive with a WNBA title, as she and Harrisburg’s Alyssa Thomas just helped the Phoenix Mercury reach the Finals by upsetting the No. 1-seed Lynx.
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The top stars not taking part as of now are Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson, who weren’t in last winter either; and Sabrina Ionescu, who was and decided to not join this time.
There is one caveat: since just four of the league’s eight teams will play here, not all the players will show up. The teams will be set when the season schedule is announced in November. But on the whole, the marquee is plenty big.
“We’re obviously bullish on the star power of player we’re able to bring,” Bazzell said. “I don’t think it scared us. I think when we do these things, we want to do them correctly. We have no idea just yet what the turnout is going to be, but we do believe in where the sport’s going [and] in our star power.”
Goals beyond hoops
Basketball isn’t the only sport the Sisters are interested in.
“Alex [Sykes] said the other day, ‘I’d love to see five women’s sports teams mascots in addition to the five men’s [teams],” Lunkheimer said. “There’s big and small opportunities with women’s sports that this community is living for. But to start with basketball is perfect, right? Because we are a basketball city.”
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They both know the math is a stretch, but it’s not impossible. Along with the WNBA, there’s the National Women’s Soccer League, the Professional Women’s Hockey League, and League One Volleyball — a sport that’s become very popular at the college and high school levels.
The Women’s Pro Baseball League plans to lauch next year, and in August held a tryout day in D.C. Philadelphia’s Mo’ne Davis, still popular years after her Little League heroics, was among the participants.
“You have in front of you passionate Philadelphians, moms that just were wanting to actually stay here and show their kids women’s professional sports in the city, not going to bigger cities elsewhere,” Sykes said. “People want this so much to happen now in Philadelphia, we realize — people are coming to us with ideas.”
Lunkenheimer is one of those mothers. She spoke about taking her children to north Jersey to Gotham FC, and to Brooklyn to watch the Liberty.
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“We have the privilege to be able to travel,” she said, “to take our kids to to see women professional athletes. There are so many kids in this community who don’t have that opportunity. And it does matter that women are playing at a professional level, and it does matter that our girls see it — but it also matters that our boys see it.”
And as Sykes noted, a lot of men watch women’s sports. U.S. Soccer has long sold its women’s national team jerseys in men’s sizes, and the WNBA said this year its fan base has been 57% men and 43% women. The league’s audience of boys under age 18 has more than doubled over the past four years.
“It’s interesting, because we feel like it’s girls and women going to the games,” Sykes said. “It’s really almost 50-50, if not more men. But to us, it’s truly about basketball fans.”