Project B is a new exciting league stepping in the fast-growing women’s basketball ecosystem. The six-event, F1-style league will debut next December and features several international stars, including the French player Leïla Lacan. To understand its unique model, SPORTPOWHER© asked Alana Beard, Chief Basketball Officer at Project B and WNBA Hall of Famer, to present its strategy and ambition.
Project B, a new model for women’s basketball
Alana Beard, as one its co-founders, could you describe the genesis of Project B, how it started and what motivated you to join the project ?
During my 15-year journey into the WNBA, I’ve always been that athlete who was pretty adamant about preparing for life after the game. So when I retired from the WNBA in January 2020 and jumped into the venture capital space as a senior associate with Silicon Valley Bank Capital, the next step was to fulfill the desire that I’ve always had to own a team. Then I met Grady Burnett, former Meta’s global sales executive. We met through a mutual friend. We planned a 30-minute meeting where he explained to me a project he had, but after three minutes, I knew that this was something I would love to explore more. With such founders as Grady Burnett and Geoff Prentice, the founder of Skype, there is no one better to understand what it means to enter an ecosystem and think differently to build something new. Grady Burnett is a leading expert in scaling businesses and teams on a global level. All in all, it piqued my interest. The second thing that caught my curiosity is the deep will that Geoff and Grady have to put the athlete at the very center of the ecosystem. There’s no league, no team, no business without the athletes. And the fact that we’re focusing on putting the athletes at the center and giving them true stakes in what we and they are building is something that just captures me every single time.
Nothing is more powerful than what we’re witnessing in sports today, with athletes understanding that they are the business, not just part of the business. As a player who’s gone through kind of the early stages of what we’re experiencing today, it’s a powerful thing to sit back and watch.
Like some new emerging women’s sports properties, players are earning equity in Project B. That’s part of a wider, unique business model. Could you break it down for the uninitiated ?
When we think about Project B, the obvious goal is to build around the game of basketball. But it’s so much more. We’re activating cities around the world with the goal of building out a sustainable model for years to come. We plan on establishing ourselves within a culture for the benefit of the game and a broader community. We aim to utilize this game of basketball as the ultimate unifier of the world.
Now regarding the players. It takes a unique kind of player to understand the power of what we’re building. There’s a growth mindset that is needed for the players that we engage because what we’re attempting to do has never been done before, so we need athletes who understand that it’s about more than them. We want them to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset because we’re not just building for us, we’re building a company. The equity we’re offering is not performative. Project B is handing equity to the players so they have true ownership and a real influence on how the company is being built. It was a no brainer for Geoff and Grady, who have always been rewarded for the time they invested in their companies and the projects they helped to build. And I think that is the ultimate differentiator between us and other leagues that exist today.
In a few years, the valuations of the WNBA teams have skyrocketed. We want to change the model and present the players with a share of the capital, and outcome from a brand they help create. And I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Building Project B around athletes and expertise
You are Chief Basketball Officer of Project B, but your whole responsibility seems to go much further than the sports part. How would you describe your role ?
When I retired from the WNBA, I established my nonprofit organization in order to provide resources to young women to achieve success on and off the court. My mindset was already to dig into the details and understand how do you actually build a nonprofit from the ground up. Not letting my agents and advisors build up the whole structure. This experience still strongly influences my understanding of how our community impact infrastructures work within Project B as well.
The other main questions that we need to solve at Project B are how do we scale it from country to country? How do we design a model that is repeatable in every single country ? How do we build with the intent of putting the growth of the game at the forefront, not just on the court, but also everything outside of it? How do we bring more women into the sport as leaders? Not just as basketball players, but also in executive positions and medical staff.
Project B is all about understanding how you utilize the game of basketball to expound upon everything that exists within the ecosystem. We break down the model to four different pillars : talent, performance, medical, and the basketball side. On all those pillars, my main responsibility is to assess those who I believe would be a fit for Project B. I lead with people first. And I then have a unique ability to take my hands off, as I trust that person’s expertise to get the job done the way that we know that we need to get it done.
You expect players to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to the league. Beyond their performance on the court, how do you want them to contribute to the development of the project?
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been ramping up on onboarding with our athletes, and I commend them for just showing up and being ready to get interviewed. Because I want to know how they think as an individual. I want to know what their interests are off the court, what type of influence they might have within the Project B ecosystem, and what interests them within Project B. Once this deep individual understanding is set, my team and I then give the players a position where they can have an impact and an influence on the areas that they care most about. It’s a trust-building process learning what the players want to build.
A global competition inspired by Formula 1
What will Project B look like from a sporting perspective ?
Project B a six-event type model with a round-robin format. For year one, we’re taking a phased approach, with four teams on the women’s side. We’re with four stops. And at the end of each tournament within each city, a champion of the city will be crowned. We have developed this point system that will accumulate over the course of a season. We took inspiration from F1. So, at the end of that entire season, there will be a legitimate champion of the world. Within the championship, every team will rely on dedicated coaches and staff. We are building a very well-resourced entity that will ensure that players are capable of performing at their most elite level.
Project B will move from one host city to another throughout the season. What kind of relationship do you want to build with each city beyond the competition itself?
I’ve had the opportunity to play in nearly 30 countries. Whether in South Korea, Poland, Spain, or Israel, I had an opportunity to just immerse myself into the cultures of the countries I lived in. And I see what we’re building is no different. We’re going in for 10 to 12 days at a time and we’re activating around the youth that aspire to be exactly who these women are. We want to ensure consistent engagement even when we leave. It’s not just around basketball, it’s also around just a local community.
The main question is “how can we leave that place better than it was when we came in?” Basketball is the core of what we’re building. We will certainly add an entertainment component to the basketball core and nurture hospitality around it. Everything that you see that exists within kind of F1 from a premium standpoint is exactly the premium model that we’re injecting in how we present with Project B.
Project B is targeting a global audience from day one. What is your strategy to make the league accessible and relevant to a new generation of fans?
We’re a socially native platform. We understand that the way sports are consumed, is completely different than what it was five years ago. We want to connect with the Gen Z audience. To engage the best with fans, Project B will be live-streamed on YouTube. And to reach our goal of engaging a billion users on one platform, it’s got to be frictionless, it can’t be behind paywalls. So Project B will be free to watch. We want you to see these individuals, we want you to see these athletes, we want you to see this experience and this product. Our goal is to provide access to the game with the best athletes on one of the most competitive stages in the world.
France is commonly known as the second market of basketball in the world. French players are praised all around the world. Is France a market you consider stepping in ?
France, we’ve all seen it, at the Olympic level, now with the players that are existing within the WNBA, is a great basketball nation. So, yes, without doubt, France is on our roadmap to bring a tournament there. It’s becoming one of the most powerful ecosystems within sports. It is mandatory for us to consider France as a potential stop for the league.
Creating new value across the women’s basketball ecosystem
Women’s basketball is entering a new phase of global growth. Where does Project B fit within the existing ecosystem, and what new value can it create for players, brands and fans?
What I want to emphasize is that our goal is to come in and strengthen what already exists. We don’t want to be seen as a threat within this space, but as a collaborative partner. With what Project B is building, there’s a massive opportunity for other entities to leverage for their benefit. We’re opening up a different access to fans. We’re opening up a different access to potential sponsorships and commercial deals. We’re introducing new audiences. At the end of the day, we’re building global superstars, and each player that engages with this platform is going to become that much more powerful within the whole basketball landscape. That’s the beauty in it.
Even for the host cities, Project B is establishing itself as a permanent presence within the countries that we engage. Grow the game in a way that we all know it can be grown. There are 3.3 billion fans that exist globally. Right now, the NBA is only tapping into 11% of that within North America the way that they could. The WNBA as well. Project B aims to connect wider.
Merchandising is a key aspect of creating fan value in the women’s sports ecosystem. Is Project B developing its own collections ?
Yes, we do have our own internal lifestyle team led by fashion industry veteran William Kim. The fans are going to get the same access to the gear that our players wear. We’re creating our own IP at every single turn within Project B.
Project B creates a new platform for players, fans and brands to grow the whole basket-ball ecosystem. Designed as a premium, F1-like model, Project B offers a global perspective to make basketball engage with international communities and create a cultural moment for the fans and the cities.