The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - GOOD FOLLOW - Project B Signs Big Names, And The Impact On CBA Negotiations, Unrivaled Season Predictions & More!

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Today on Good Follow, Ros Gold-Onwude and Angel McCoughtry discuss Project B’s potential impact on the WNBA. Angel explains why players may want to go overseas in the offseason. And, what does it mean that the president of the players' association, Nneka Ogwumike, is the first to sign? Does the WNBA need to be the premier league? How will this impact the way fans interact with basketball? Then, Ros and Angel make their Way Too Early predictions for this season of Unrivaled. Who will be the champion? Will Paige Bueckers lead Breeze BC to a victory? Can Napheesa Collier repeat as the 1v1 winner? Which team will have the best tunnel walks? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Draft King's Network. Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to Good Follow show, presented by Draft Kings. It's your girl, Roz Goldandwe, and I am here with five times. time WNBA All-Star, two-time Olympic gold medalist. My girl, Angel McCartrey. What's up? What's up, girl?

We've got a great show today for y'all. Here's the menu. Let me take you through some of these topics. Project B. There's a new league, Angel. Project B signed NECA Agu-Mekai. How will this new league rival the WNBA and other leagues? What does Project B mean for CBA negotiations?

And then let's take it to unrivaled. They revealed their club rosters and we make some all two. early predictions. It is time for my cue. Take it away. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Continue to check us out. Like, comment, and subscribe.

We love you. We have a new overseas league called Project B. Here's a little bit of details and T about it. Season play wouldn't directly overlap with the WNBA. Timing-wise, it more competes with

your athletes unlimited, you're unrivaled, and certainly other international play like FIBA, you're a league, Euro Cup, et cetera. It's slated to start next year. So we're talking November, 2026 to April 27. So this is about a six-month league

and play season. And they're going to play across Asia, Europe, and Africa. Wow. Another note about Project B, they're ready to show the ladies the money. Oh, God. So front office sports reported salaries starting at $2 million annually.

Oh, my God. Multi-year deals that are going to get into the double-digit millies. You know what I'm saying? Them tens, maybe them 20s. And for superstars, you know, the money could be even bigger. And they're going to get equity on top of all of that. Wow. Their first signing public announcement reveal of the league starts with Nekha Aguimake.

Oh, yeah. Who is literally the president of the Players Association. So it's quite a statement, quite a splash to announce their arrival. What does your just immediate reaction, Project B, and the way they've announced themselves, and especially the first signing in NECA? Well, I think it's the perfect first signing. NECA is due for something like this. We already said we've kind of taken her for granted.

So this is great. I just have questions on, like, how does this work with her, you know, being the president? Right. You know, those are the questions I have. But I think we dive into like how this affects the WMBA, man. Like this is for real. The girl's about to get paid. Right.

I mean, well, first of all, they came in there and got a big splashy, big name, a great leader for the league. Yeah. It's surprising because it is the president of the Players Association who is at the forefront of a, you know, historical CBA renegotiation. But I just want you to put your player hat on right now. Okay. I told you you were going to get unprecedented millions of dollars, equity and the league, all of these things. Take it back to Prime Year's Angel. You know, two-time scoring champion, WNBA finals, participant multiple times, five-time All-Star, two-time Olympic gold medalists,

they'd probably be knocking on your door, right? So would you join Project B? I would. I mean, I was making during that time probably what? The max was 90,000. I mean, even just say, like, you haven't been playing the league for, what, one, two years or something? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Let's just even talk now. You're a current player. These players are making max 250. Now I'm making $250, then 90. And let's see.

$5 million, $2 million. I mean, guys, you do the math. Who's going to turn that down? Then I have a chance to have equity in this league, and this league could possibly grow. I mean, Project B, aka Project B, let's get it. Yeah. Feels like common sense almost.

It feels like it is common sense. I mean, honestly, I see a lot of girls. If you're going to get paid $5 million, why put your body through? playing in the WBA? That's what I see coming. Well, here's the other aspect of this, too. I thought the whole trend and point of some of these new leagues popping up was that the trend was going, players wanted to stay home in the U.S.

And so that's an advantage that, like, unrivaled and athletes unlimited provides you when you're not playing WNBA season, you can still stay in America and play here. But what Project B is saying, not only will you be in Europe, you're going to be in Asia, you're going to be in Latin America, but at that two-milly price point, You might hop on that plane. You know what I'm saying? Let me tell you guys something. This whole stay in the U.S. thing is a myth.

They have told you guys that I've had some of my best experiences overseas. Istanbul, Turkey. I have tons of friends over there. I've ate great food. The parties are great. You party until 7 in the morning on the off day. And then you go eat breakfast, man. Like, that's the life.

I don't know why we thought, like, yeah, nobody wants to go play in a place where it's miserable. But to play in like Europe, Asia, possibly Africa, hey, people travel anyway. So I'm being able to play basketball, travel, and get paid. That is the life. Yeah. That's a really cool perspective and point that we're not hearing a lot of now. We're hearing a lot of kind of villainization of the overseas life.

There were plenty of people who thrived as a player over there. Maybe got better attention, treatment, life over there than even in the Americas. But to each their own, here's the thing, though. Like, you're playing six months of Project B basketball. Well, technically you could go and play the WNBA in the summer, according to the schedules right now. But with the WNBA's prioritization rules, which is also up for discussion in the CBA negotiation, what you might find is if you're making 5 Millie to play Project B, you might just say, I'm cool off the WNBA. I'm not going to do it. And so all of a sudden, you might skip the WNBA season altogether, thoughts?

I mean, to make millions and then go and join my. summer on a yacht in Ibiza. I mean, hey, but I do see this, Ross. You speak in my language. But this is what I do see. I do see the WBA could possibly make some stipulations from this, just like they did with us playing overseas. Girls were getting fined if they were still overseas playing in Mission Training Camp. And so I see something like that in the miss because it is giving some competition. Well, these are the prioritization rules, right? And so that's something that's very heavily contested right now in the CBA renegotiation.

And there's pressure against unrivaled overseas. I mean, there have been players who have missed WNBA seasons to focus on their international play. Emma Misman is one, right? She was with a Belgian team playing international and now just came back to join the Liberty this season, right? So that's just an example.

So, like, players are asking, wondering if they can loosen up on some of these things. Here's my caveat to all of that because it's really valuable to hear from you saying there's a lot that would be appealing to me and that is very honest conversation. My caveat would be this. All of these leagues are new.

Athletes Unlimited Women's Basketball actually is the longest standing and they're heading into their fifth season of Women's Basketball play. This is during a time of unprecedented attention to women's basketball. The WMBA, they've been in the trenches for 30 years. for better or worse, through the lows and the highs of how public and society treated and deemed women's basketball. And I'd be wary of just jumping ship on that and not properly protecting the W as you pursue other options that may be more lucrative. Because what if those leagues collapse or fail or if they lose interest? Here's another thought. What if we dilute the talent

pool. Mind you, if the WMA players are the best players in the world, there's 156 of those. And so, you know, I mean, of course, there's other players coming in up, coming up the ranks, but I'm just trying to say, like, it's not let me talking about, it's 156 of those. And there's a couple of huge stars that are directing a lot of attention, star power. What if we make it harder to follow those players or to follow where to watch them or the competition or which leagues do we pay attention to? And yeah, at the top, like, some stars are going to get $5 million bags or $850,000 bags and this and that, but you might mess up the overall momentum and growth of the game

and the audience that we're seeing right now. So, like, you've got to make sure you protect that, too. I would just be wary of losing the momentum and jumping on new ships without protecting things that already exist. Is it okay for the WNBA to not be the premier women's basketball league? Or does it have to be in order for women's basketball as an ecosystem to continue to rise? It doesn't have to be, but I think it should for as long as the WNBA has been around, right? But it's like to be in a marriage for 30 years and to not see a marriage grow. It's like a relationship. If your relationship is stagnant and not growing, where is it?

going to go. It's time for the DubnbNBA to grow and go to another level for these women. And they're sick and tired. It's been a sick and tired 20 years ago. But now we're at a new age where women are not scared to speak out like we used to. It's time for the change

and it's time for the Dubboeigh to say, hey, you know what? We do care about these women. Their brands do represent million dollar contracts. And now we see that they're stepping out making leagues of their own. Hey, let's start to Dubai League next. Dubai got the...

Like, it's that easy now. Ross, let's start league in Dubai. Like, I think it's very clear that this is no longer the day of your grimm, of your aunties, your granny's WNBA, where maybe it was the WMBA players should be, you know, lucky that there is a league to play in. Like, no, they have many options now. And that's really clear as we take it to the impact on CBA negotiations. So literally, again, Project B signed. Nekha Agumakeh, president of the Players' Union. In fact, the entire Players' Union leadership group, the president, the VPs and all that,

all of them got equity in different leagues. So whether that's Project B unrivaled or athletes unlimited, they all got different slices of ownership in that. And let's look at an excerpt from front office sports, what they said about the impact. An intentional move to exert pressure on labor negotiations. There was a similar feeling last year. when union leaders, Nefisa Collier and Brianna Stewart, co-founded unrivaled. At the time, both players acknowledged the startup three-on-three league

came at a perfect time as negotiations for a new CBA were just beginning. So to come back to the impact on CBA negotiations, how do you see the fact that all these players got ownership slices impacting the way they discuss things? I would say, like, the girls know they want their bargaining power. You know, they want to have a say in how they, things are going. It seems like they felt that their voices or haven't been valued or heard on the WBA side. And now they have a chance to be in another league and have some ownership and equity. And as a player, they can, you know, vouch for other players for things to be better

for young girls in the future. That's what it's looking like. And it's making a statement to the WBA. And it's like, what is the WBA response going to be to all these statements of unrivaled coming and all these new league project B? Like, what is your retaliation in a positive way, WBA, to all these new leagues coming, because it's only going to be more and more if things don't change. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I agree with the concept of this gives the players leverage. The leverage. You know, I think it's certainly a good thing that in a negotiation, when you have leverage, when you can position yourself to say, I got another option. You know what I'm saying? And not even like, none of these options say, I won't play W. It just

says we're putting pressure on you to get this right. When you heard about, like, NECA as the president of the association and her involvement in this, the knee-jerk reaction that you could see is it feels like maybe there might be some conflicts of interest, right? And certainly, yeah, conflicts of interest, not just for her, but for anybody who's over there with ownership of other leagues and you have equity in other leagues, what might be important to you might be different than players who have no equity in other leagues. Again, so I want to bring back numbers. It's 156 players in the WNBA.

This season in unrivaled, 56 players, 40 players and athletes unlimited. These big deals, the high numbers that are being reported on in articles and stuff, that's reserved for your top star players. So all of those players are going to, there's going to be a rising of that, right? My question is, what happens to the middle class of the WNBA? And how are they protected, included, and advocated for? You know, how do you, if the million dollar money is being thrown for the Project B League, how does that affect unrivaled who positioned themselves as the league for all the stars?

And they had a $250,000, $300,000, whatever it is, salary for their players. And then now, you know, and an athlete's unlimited is a little bit different, five-on-five league. Like, the top bags you're hearing is for the stars. Yeah. What do you think, Angel? No, that's so good because, I mean, each league is. obviously for the stars. You have these middle-tier players

who are not getting offered these million-dollar bags. So I would say this is the opportunity for them to rise up because if all the stars go play in Project B, you need stars in Dunbeet. You need names. This does give an opportunity

for a middle-tier girl to rise up in the Dunbe and make a name for herself, but then you still got to pay her too. So the Dunbe at the end of the day, you don't want this to be a revolving cycle of new names coming in and you're still not paying them.

And now they got a name. Now they want to go to Project B. It could just be a lot of conflict. Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out. One note we want to make before we head to break is that another aspect of the involvement here is the involvement of Saudi money in Project B. And there's been some distancing from Project B leaders and the labeling of this as a Saudi league. Instead, they prefer to say they have a Saudi event partner. Certainly we've seen Saudi interest and lucrative investment in sports before women's basketball. And there's been public. pushback to that. There's been negative reception of their participation and more so their motivation for investing in these sports. Some people have called out sports washing, meaning to use sports as a distraction from human rights abuse happening in Saudi culture. So look, there's a lot of distancing. There's a lot of back. We're going to continue to monitor information on this topic

as it comes out and we learn more about Project B in time. But for now, I mean, And one thing we know we're in favor of, I guess the girl's get in the bag. Give them the bag. Yeah, we'll be right back. We're going to talk unrivaled coming up next. Hey. Welcome back. to Good Fallow Show. Today's episode is presented by

Drive Kings. Draft Kings. Last week, Unrivaled, they revealed their team, new club rosters, so exciting. All eyes was on that stream. And so that means it's time for our way too early predictions for Unrivaled. But I want to use this moment

to remind y'all that last year in our prediction show, I actually called the Rose to win. And I was right. So that was really cool. I also covered Unrivaled last season in Miami. I was there as a reporter and analyst, all the things. I'll certainly be back in Miami this year to tap in with Unrivaled.

So let's get into our picks. I don't know if I'm going to get it right this year. But for the team to win it all, I got my eyes on two teams. I'm going to start with the team that everybody got excited about. Team Breeze. They're hella young. They're super talented, though. man like team breeze in three years from now is about to be a monster but let's see team breeze in

twenty six i still think they're going to be good because they got um size shooters rebounds playmakers shot blockers players who can make the most out of the space that comes with three on three basketball i did all that to say i'm not picking them to win though i am i just wanted to say that to cover my back but i got the laces oh um and my thought is they might be the best defensive team. The laces have Jackie Young, Britney Sykes, Alyssa Thomas,

Jordan Canada, come on defense. Plus, Nas Hillman's, Maddie Segris, like the energy of those two. Remember I said the breeze were young,

these are all veterans. And a lot of them have experience and playing in this. They can score the ball, they can share the ball. I'm going laces. You going laces? Yeah,

what about you? If this was five on five, you go with the laces. But this is three on three basketball. Yeah. And then it's a little different. So I'm going to go with this breeze, them young legs. Because when you're playing three on three, you can't hide, baby.

You can hide five on five. You can get a break five on five. But them legs got to keep rolling. I'm going with the young fresh legs of Team Breeze with Cameron Brigg and Rickia Jackson, Paige, Becker. And who can score quick three on three? You don't got time to be setting up five on five, all that stuff. It's quick basketball. It's score.

Who can score the quickest? Yeah. Same breeze, I believe. Yeah, and it's also an interesting dynamic because it's full court three on three and there's all this space to work with that there's nobody in help side or like extra crowding. Like it's a different, like that bag, how deep it is, you could really show that off. Unrivaled will be hosting their second one versus one tournament this year. Last year, Nefisa Collier won that $200,000 extra pies pot.

I'm actually curious what Nefisa's health status is given just how torn up her ankles were by the end of the WNBA season. So I'm not sure if she can repeat this year. So these were my thoughts on picking a one-on-one champion. I was the reporter for the one-on-one tournament. So I was there for all the games. I did the interviews with the players. I noticed that size, big players,

strength, and also versatile bigs, did really well in the one-on-one tournament. And so I also think having experience in the first edition of the one-on-one tournament is really going to help those players. because they now know what that is and what comes with it. So I could see,

knowing that's the category, I could see Satu Sabali, Deerica Hamby doing very well, and Aaliyah Edwards. She did, she shined in the one-on-one tournament. Maybe we weren't as familiar with how deep her bag was.

Like she had the strength, the handle, the mobility, and I think a little chip on her shoulder and she really shined. So I got some of those. I also want to shout out, Skylar Diggins was hilarious in the one-on-one tournament

and, like, is so competitive that it's almost hilarious. And I can't wait to see what strategy she pulls out. Who you got winning? I don't know if I would call them versatile bigs. Okay? They're big guards. Okay. Us big guards are the tweeners.

Okay? When we play one-on-one, the little ones are not going to win, and the big post are not, it's those tweeners in the middle, the ones that are big, And quick like guards, got guard skills, and got that big body like a post. They always win the one-on-one. So players like that are Rikkiah Jackson, Ray Barrow, Ryan Howard, even Diorca Hamby. I would say Rickia Jackson.

Big body, quick, but could guard in the Leah Boston. And it's a bucket. And it's a bucket. Because you got to have the big body to guard in Alia Boston to win. Yeah. Those tweeners, baby. Big guards. Okay.

All right. Well, it'll be exciting, plus the money's on the line. All right, let's move along to our next category. Best Tunnel Fit Team. We all know some of the best things to come out of Enrival last season was that walked down the epic, Sephora Tunnel. And people really put some fits together. So the team that I'm choosing is Team Vinyl.

And the reason why, think about it. Ryan Howard, Courtney Williams, you know, they put a fit together. Deerica Hamby, Ray Barron. You already saw how the Sparks was acting in their game day picks. I also think the diversity of styles, you got the feminine, you got the masculine, you got the studs, you got the girlies. And here's the thing about it being warm weather in Miami. You know the abs is going to be out.

A ton of abs will be on display. I know this team is going to put it together. You know what? I think this is the first time we've actually agreed on the show. I have team vinyl also for all those reasons, especially with the stud bud. and then D.R. and Hamby as that, you know, the sexy femininity. Yeah. They like to bring out the stomachs.

Are you bringing on to the stomach in Miami then you go? I pray, man. Let me be very clear. If my abs were ready for prime time, you would see him. I'm working at it. I've been eating right because I know Miami is coming up and working out. And if I get abs, just know I'm going to be obnoxious about it. Oh, my God.

I've been saying your stories. You've been in Pilates, man. I know, but you've noticed that. I've had a full-on shirt. We're not ready yet. But, yeah, so let's move along. Best Content Team. Who you got?

Best content team. I'm going to go with the Rose. Oh, why? Because I feel like Chelsea Gray is the one that leaves at. Lexi Hall is good on camera. She's the little cutie. Yeah, that's fair. I got them.

I just went with the breeze because I'm like, come on, you got all them. You got the TikTok queens and all the things. More than any, I feel like we're going to get a lot of dance content out of them. feel like we're going to get the dance we might get some like more thoughtful funny ones okay we're running at a time another cool aspect of unrivaled are the coaches that are coming out this season who do you think's going to have the greatest impact um i like ronika hodges cool she's played for a long time the wba she's a player's coach um she gets it um she's coming and is a new fresh coach

going to be a head coach in dubay one day and i have one more rena locksman too i'm looking to her yeah yeah yeah absolutely you know so for me i'm just going to give a quick shout out to T-Spoon, Teresa Weatherspoon. Her impact, her energy was felt all over unrivaled last season, and actually Team Vinyl made it to the championship games and knocked out the lunar owls who were dominant all season, so they upset them. And they were like T-Spoons belief in us, her energy, the way she coached us, helped us get to that point because they were an underdog that got there.

So, you know, she'll be back. I expect her to make impact again. But my main point for unrivaled is just that black women coaches are so prevalent in unrivaled. Think about the WNBA. There have been none. There's none right now. And so shout out to Nola Henry, who returns and obviously led Rose to a championship last year. Noel Quinn. Noel Quinn is back. Renica Hodges, these are longtime WNBA players and coaches. And then, of course, Coach Buckhamma, Rina, who has done a great job in leading Team Nigeria, the national team to the Olympics. Yes. So I'm always shouting out, you know, Nigerian success, but also excited to see what

she does in unrivaled with the hive, I believe, yes? And it's about how the players respect them. That's the beautiful part about it. They have so much fun with these coaches. And that'll do it for today's show. We're out of time, as always. Fun to hang with you. Yes.

See you this weekend, LA. Yeah. All right. She's Angel. I'm Roz. This is Good Follow show. We're out. You know,