TNT Sports‘ coverage of the upstart Unrivaled women’s basketball league is taking shape, with the Warner Bros. Discovery division officially rolling out studio programming that will be televised alongside the live games.
With Unrivaled leaning on WNBA superstars for its rosters (co-founders include Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, with stars like Sabrina Ionescu and Angel Reese participating), TNT Sports is betting that some of the biggest names in the sport will bolster its studio programming.
The studio show will be built around former WNBA MVP Candace Parker, former WNBA All-Star Renee Montgomery and host Lauren Jbara, with appearances from Lisa Leslie, who will also serve as a game analyst. Taylor Rooks, Allie LaForce, Stephanie Ready and Ros Gold-Onwude will work as game reporters.
“I think you need people who are authentic in the space, that are true advocates and believers in the sport,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview, adding of Parker: “Having her first and foremost is really impactful for the space. She’s someone that goes outside of even women’s basketball in terms of her star power and her voice. She’s well respected, has an incredible basketball mind.”
“If we couldn’t have assembled a team that felt like it was worthy of the caliber of player that was playing, then I don’t think it would have been worth doing,” says Craig Barry, executive VP and chief content officer for TNT Sports.”
Unrivaled uses a smaller court and 3 on 3 format, making for a faster-paced style of play than the WNBA. It is also, as Barry notes a “really unique property.”
“It’s one of the few times where offshoot league in any sport has had the pro athletes participating,” he says. “And I think there’s a unique opportunity to really play in the intersection of sports and culture, and specifically women’s pro basketball and culture.”
He adds, however, that “it’s going to take a little bit of time,” to introduce the league to viewers.
“We’re going to kind of build this together with the league, we’re going to grow together and and hopefully grow the fan base with it,” he says. “This is a very different kind of basketball than The W [the WNBA] … I think everybody’s gonna have to get used to it. I think the athletes that are playing are gonna have to get used to it. It’s just a different type of basketball, and hopefully the idea of it being differentiated because it is a little more run and gun, hopefully creates a uniqueness to it that makes it interesting and makes it compelling.”
The studio shows are a big part of that, with Bazzell noting that “it’s entertainment driven in the end.”
“We are in such a unique time period where people’s attention are pulled in 100 different directions, between social media and what they’re doing in real life and, of course, linear television,” Bazzell says. “I think where Candice and I have always aligned is treat this like sports, don’t treat this like women’s sports. And then you’re gonna relate more authentically to the viewer at home.”
And TNT Sports will have complete access to Unrivaled’s facilities in Miami, which will allow it to film a follow-along docuseries during the inaugural season.
“We have this opportunity to not only showcase these world class athletes, but to document their journey over the eight weeks,” Barry says. “We have the ability to tell stories week over week, because all of these athletes are going to be in the same place at the same time for for eight weeks.”
“They have a decades of track record of storytelling and basketball specifically,” Bazzell adds. “So I don’t think we could hope for a better partner in the end.”
Read the full article here
