This is how much more Breanna Stewart, Arike Ogunbowale get for winning Unrivaled compared to WNBA contracts originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Kelsey Plum’s 40-point outburst wasn’t enough for the top-seeded Phantom in the Unrivaled championship game on Wednesday night.
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Mist BC took the title and capped Unrivaled’s second season as the 3-on-3 league’s new champions, as Breanna Stewart (32 points) and Arike Ogunbowale (19) combined for 51 points to lead Mist to an 80-74 win at Sephora Arena in Miami.
When Stewart sank the game-winning two-point free throw, it sparked a wild celebration at center court — not just because it brought an end to an intense two-month season, but because the prize money on offer is a major boost to these players’ bank accounts.
Mist players taking home $100,000 each
Ogunbowale, Stewart and their four teammates (including Alanna Smith, the WNBA co-Defensive Player of the Year) will be splitting a prize pool of $600,000 after winning the Unrivaled championship.
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That works out to an average of $100,000 per player, which is two-thirds of the average WNBA salary and 1.5 times higher than the league-minimum $66,000 salary.
It adds up to a nice payday for the Mist BC players, especially after factoring in that the average Unrivaled salary is roughly $220,000, which alone is nearly worth the WNBA supermax of $249,000.
In comparison, the average WNBA salary is under $150,000.
This is a gap that the players’ union is trying to close amid lengthy, tense negotiations with the WNBA over a new collective bargaining agreement. No agreement seems imminent yet, five days before the league’s deadline of March 10 to guarantee a full 2026 regular season.
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