Report: Paige Bueckers signs three-year deal with Unrivaled ahead of WNBA Draft, will make more than rookie contract

Paige Bueckers is a day away from beginning her professional career in the WNBA. She’ll be playing in more than one league, though, with her reported signing.

Per ESPN, Bueckers has signed a three-year deal with Unrivaled, the new three-versus-three women’s basketball league that just completed its first season last month. That contract will be worth a sum that her first year’s compensation will exceed what she’ll make entirely on her four-year deal if she is, as expected, the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft by the Dallas Wings on Monday.

“Projected No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick Paige Bueckers is signing a three-year deal with the 3-on-3 league Unrivaled, sources told ESPN on Sunday,” ESPN’s Kendra Andrews wrote. “Bueckers’ first-year salary for the 10-week Unrivaled season will exceed what she would make in all four years of her WNBA rookie contract, sources said. If Bueckers is the top pick in the draft, she is set to earn $78,831 in her first year, according to the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement.”

Per those same sources, Andrews noted this was a big key going into the offseason for Unrivaled. Bueckers was one of the “top priorities” along with the league’s pursuits of players like Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson.

This comes eight months after Bueckers signed an NIL deal with Unrivaled back at the start of August. That deal gave her an ownership stake in the league that, with this, she’ll now be playing in.

Unrivaled, founded by fellow players with Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, is coming off its debut season where it had three-on-three play as well as a one-on-one tournament. With that, the league reportedly made over $27 million in revenue with the focus now to build off of that.

Bueckers is coming off her fifth and final season in college at Connecticut. She averaged 19.8 points (53.1% FG, 42.3% 3PT), 4.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 2.1 steals per game in that collegiate career. She then ended that time by being a champion in leading the Huskies to the national title.

Bueckers will now try to be one of the best players in all of women’s basketball at the next level. She’ll get the chance to do so not only in the WNBA but now, in a unique situation, as a player and owner in Unrivaled.

How Paige Bueckers, WNBA can capitalize on NIL success

In 2020, Paige Bueckers arrived on the college basketball scene, winning National Player of the Year as a freshman. The UConn star became one of the faces of the sport as part of the vaunted 2020 recruiting class which included names such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, and Kamilla Cardoso.

Bueckers’ rise to stardom came just ahead of the NIL era in college sports, which began with her sophomore season. Although injuries got in the way of her 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, she capitalized off the court and her On3 NIL Valuation surged to $1.5 million by the time she cut down the nets as a national champion last week.

As she navigated the NIL space, Bueckers stayed deliberate. That approach paid off, and ahead of Monday’s WNBA Draft, the projected No. 1 overall pick signed an endorsement deal with Ally – which is now a presenting sponsor for the league. When looking at NIL deals in college, Bueckers didn’t just want to look out for herself. She wanted to include her teammates while also giving back.

“I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is to give with what you’ve been given,” Bueckers said Friday during a virtual press conference announcing her partnership with Ally. “A lot of my partnerships, we have values aligned of giving back, making sure my teammates are included and making sure there’s a donation part set aside.

“Just being able to use the partnership and the platform and the blessings that I’ve been given to share it with people around me – nothing you get in the NIL space happens without the people around you. So just a testament to that’s just to share everything.”

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