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The players of Project B include Leonie Fiebich, Jewell Loyd, Kamilla Cardoso, Jonquel Jones, and Sophie Cunningham.
Project B
Project B, the international women’s and men’s basketball league recently announced their second location of Valencia, Spain. The league revealed Tokyo, Japan as one of their other tournament stops and will be unveiling the other locations over the next several months.
Project B will be played in a tournament style format with seven total stops on their global circuit season format that begins in November and runs through April 2027. Each city will host a 10-day event that crowns a local champion and feeds into a season long championship race, mirroring other successful leagues like Formula 1.
These cities and the others to be announced were intentionally chosen by the Project B’s leadership and investor group which includes Geoff Prentice (co-founder at Skype), Grady Burnett (Project B Chief Operating Officer and former Facebook and Google executive), and Alana Beard (former WNBA and International champion now Project B Chief Basketball Officer).
According to Burnett, “The cities were evaluated based on a combination of factors, including the strength and engagement of the existing fan base, the presence of an established basketball culture, and the availability of advanced venues and arenas capable of hosting world-class events.”
He continued, “We also looked closely at each city’s broader character and cultural identity, prioritizing locations that offer a compelling story and unique backdrop, ultimately creating memorable experiences for both players and fans.”
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VALENCIA, SPAIN - MARCH 19: Panoramic view of arena during the EuroLeague Regular Season Round 32 match between Valencia Basket and FC Barcelona at Roig Arena on March 19, 2026 in Valencia, Spain. (Photo by JM Casares/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images)
Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images
The Valencia stop will be played in Roig Arena, a new state of the art stadium that was specifically built with the fan experience in mind as it prioritizes sight lines, the acoustics, and a high-caliber hospitality infrastructure.
Furthermore, the games in Valencia will be played March 12–22, 2027, which coincides with Las Fallas, the city’s iconic festival that fills Valencia with art, fireworks, and celebration each March; allowing fans to experience the cultural elements of the city alongside basketball.
Breaking Down the Strategy, Structure and Stakes behind Project B
The idea of Project B sprang from Burnett and Prentice’s travel and time living abroad. As Burnett explained, “ I think when Geoff and I started this originally, we were sports fans, we were basketball fans. We both spent a lot of our careers internationally, and we tried to follow our favorite North American teams while we were living or traveling in other countries. And it was oftentimes very hard because it was tied to US media deals, and it was at times that were in the middle of the night.”
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Project B co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Grady Burnett.
Project B
However, Burnett and Prentice also understood the impact, power and reach of basketball on a global scale. Burnett stated, “Sport is a multi-trillion-dollar industry and basketball is the second biggest sport within that industry. So there are three billion basketball fans in the world, right? There are a lot of people out there that love this sport, that play it, and that follow it. With 90-plus percent of the fans outside the United States, we needed to activate and figure out if there are ways to bring basketball, bring these players, activate these fans, lean into those cultures, and do that in person."
As Burnett pointed to, the reach for basketball far extends North America and the United States, however, “the vast majority of the games are played in North America and in North American prime time.” Thus, for Project B it is about shifting away from this model that focuses on North America and its time slots as the standard and taking a more global approach. This is why the league already has a partnership in place with YouTube.
Project B has a production company partner that is going to allow them to produce high quality games, but accessibility is important to the leadership group. They want fans to be able to watch for free, hence the partnership with YouTube for distribution, as well as a heavy focus on their social media presence with Meta, Instagram, X, and TikTok.
A Player Equity Model That Could Redefine League Economics
Beyond the global locations and emphasis on reach, Project B is designed with an emphasis on the players at the center of the business structure. The players that have signed on and will continue to sign on with Project B receive equity stakes in the league, a true differentiator from traditional sport leagues.
Burnett and the other founders found this particular component to be crucial to their long-term and sustainable success. He said, “I think that we want to be where the fans are and we want the players at the center as owners alongside us. Right? That is fundamentally core to what we’re doing. The players have seen this immense growth of the sport and the valuations of the franchises, the valuations of the sport of basketball overall. And they’ve been sitting outside of that. And for us growing up in the tech world, that just doesn’t mesh; every single person that worked at Google, Facebook, Skype, all these other companies all held equity within the company and appreciated when they grew.”
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Alana Beard, former WNBA and international champion, current Chief Basketball Officer for Project B.
Project B
Beard, further solidified the importance of the players receiving and growing with the league, “I think we are at a beautiful moment right now to where everyone’s clearly starting to take notice, but more importantly, the women in the game are starting to recognize and understand their power and understand that they are a business, and that ownership should lead and perceive anything that they decide to engage with."
She continued, "What we’re doing at Project B, the players are always going to be at the center and we have a really cool opportunity to position these women to make generational wealth from the beginning of engaging with Project B.”
Beard recognizes the importance of the moment that women’s basketball is in. The WNBA finally has signed a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will allow the players to have higher salaries and revenue share with the league. However, player compensation has been at the forefront of Project B since the beginning with Nneka Ogwumike, the league’s first signed players set to make more than $2 million annually.
Beard explained that Project B is an “additive to the [women’s basketball] ecosystem.” She discussed, “We’re creating more pathways for women to play the game that they absolutely love. An example that I can point to is what happens on an annual basis. These women play their entire college career with the goal of making it to the next level, yet when it's time to sort of get drafted or get to that next level, there are limited roster spots. This is only adding more opportunities for women to continue to pursue the game that they love at the highest level.”
Further, Beard, a former WNBA player who spent a large amount of her off-seasons playing overseas in more than 27 countries explained that Project B’s model is allowing more players to not only see the world, play their game at a high international level, but expand their brands globally. Beard detailed, "When you see these superstars that exist today, we’re saying that we’re expanding that global platform for you to continue to capitalize on those commercial opportunities that exist, not just from a domestic standpoint, but from a global side as well.”
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