Nneka Ogwumike has signed with Project B, becoming the first player publicly attached to the latest women’s professional basketball league.
Ogwumike, a 10-time WNBA All-Star and former WNBA MVP, announced Wednesday that she is joining the startup league founded by former Facebook executive Grady Burnett and Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice.
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Project B is expected to launch in 2026 and play its debut season from November 2026 through April 2027, which would be during the WNBA offseason. There will be six teams of 11 players competing in seven two-week tournaments across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Former WNBA champion Alana Beard (a teammate of Ogwumike on the title-winning 2016 Los Angeles Sparks) is the chief basketball officer for Project B. Candace Parker, the finals MVP for that squad, is one of the league’s investors, a group that also includes Novak Djokovic, Sloane Stephens and Steve Young. One of the league’s future partners, Sela, is owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Like Unrivaled, another professional women’s basketball startup that debuted in 2025, Project B is offering higher salaries than what the WNBA currently pays, along with equity stakes in the league.
“For there to be an entry level of equity across the board was eye-catching,” Ogwumike told the Associated Press “It’s something that I stand for, obviously.”
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Ogwumike’s agreement with Project B comes at a critical time for the WNBA. Ogwumike is the president of the WNBPA as the players’ union negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement with the league. The core issues of the new deal are player compensation and revenue sharing, with the two sides proposing different structures for how the players should participate in the financial growth of the league. The current CBA was set to expire on Oct. 31, but the parties agreed to a 30-day extension last week.
That Project B and Unrivaled are both offering increased salaries and a stake in the business is not an accident, as they seek to provide a new compensation model for female athletes. Now, as they go through the negotiating process, the president of the WNBPA and three of its vice presidents (Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier and Kelsey Plum) are involved with rival leagues of the WNBA that suggest a different path forward.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
WNBA, Sports Business, women’s sports
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