Women's basketball has seen an overdue surge in popularity in recent years.

Last year's WNBA championship was the most watched finals game in the league's 25-year history with 3.3 million viewers.

Now, a new professional three-on-three league called Unrivaled, launched last week in Miami, is building on that success. Games air on TNT and

True TV and stream on Max, part of a six-year deal worth $100 million. I spoke to WNBA All-Star

and co-founder of the Unrivaled League, Nefisa Collier, earlier this week. Nefisa Collier, welcome to the NewsHour. Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you. So this league was born from the joint force of you and your fellow WNBA star,

Brianna Stewart. How is it the two WNBA rivals came together to start this league? What was the

void you were trying to fill? Yes, I think just we have both been in

women's basketball for so long and the WMBA. And I think through that, we just saw the holes of what kind of works and what doesn't.

And for a long time, a lot of players had to play year-round basketball. They would play in the WMBA. They would have maybe 10 days off,

and then they would have to go overseas. So not only is that really hard on your bodies where we were

seeing really just terrible injuries. Also, a lot of people don't realize that we make most of our

money off the court. And so brand building and being able to activate with those brands is really

important for our livelihoods.

And when you're overseas, you essentially go dark for six months out of the year.

And you can't activate with those brands.

It really hurts us in that way.

And then thirdly, I think you just see the explosion that is happening in women's sports right now.

It's growing at such a rapid pace. And it feels like everyone except for the people who are putting the product on the court or the field or wherever it may be are the ones that are benefiting

financially from that. And so we kind of wanted to put all that together. And we came up with

unrivaled where we can hone our basketball skills where you're getting better. We have the best,

you know, weight facilities, recovery facilities.

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