WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart have spent the previous yr reshaping the ladies’s basketball energy construction in america. They based an alternate league, Unmatched, that has change into a central lever in essentially the most pivotal collective bargaining negotiation in latest sports activities historical past. On Thursday, the pair obtained important recognition for his or her work.
Simply hours earlier than the WNBPA voted to authorize a labor strike, it was introduced that the Unmatched co-founders can be honored with Sports activities Illustrated’s Innovators of the Yr Award on the annual Sportsperson of the Yr ceremony in Las Vegas subsequent month. The previous UConn standouts are the second recipients of the award, becoming a member of 2024 winner and groundbreaking NWSL commissioner Sarah Berman.
The primary season of Unmatched had a major affect on the newest WNBA marketing campaign, whether or not by influencing free company choices or just by exhibiting gamers that there was a viable various that would pay them in america quite than abroad—and even within the WNBA. Essentially the most essential factor Unmatched’s early success proved was that gamers in the end maintain the playing cards on the subject of the way forward for skilled girls’s basketball in america.
Traditionally, that’s an equally latest and significant improvement.
“This yr represents significant change that may affect generations of basketball gamers and followers to come back, and I’m honored Sports activities Illustrated is recognizing this work,” Stewart mentioned. “It’s a particular honor to be awarded alongside Napheesa, and I’m trying ahead to celebrating the inspiring innovation and excellence of our fellow awardees in January.”
The specter of change can also be why the WNBA has been adamant that gamers not be allowed to play in third-party leagues, corresponding to Unmatched, or in Europe, below the brand new CBA. The elephant within the room has lengthy been that gamers by no means really needed to tackle extra commitments abroad, however the lack of monetary sources within the W necessitated it.
Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier modified the panorama of girls’s basketball by co-founding the player-owned league Unmatched. Congrats to Stewart and Collier on being named Innovators of the Yr 👏 pic.twitter.com/btBuqVjpcd
— Sports activities Illustrated (@SInow) December 18, 2025
It’s solely been a decade since Diana Taurasi sat out a whole WNBA season in her prime to remain contemporary for her Russian membership. Largely due to Collier and Stewart’s work in establishing an American various, the most effective gamers on this planet will doubtless by no means should make the identical financially-driven choices once more.
“I’ve at all times believed that athletes have the facility to form the way forward for our sport,”Collier mentioned. “I’m grateful to be acknowledged, together with my co-founder, for pushing these boundaries. This second motivates me to maintain constructing, maintain advocating, and maintain creating alternatives for the following technology.”
