{"id":1535,"date":"2025-09-08T17:04:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T17:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/serena-williams-invests-in-womens-basketball-league-unrivaled-now-valued-at-340-million\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T17:04:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T17:04:42","slug":"serena-williams-invests-in-womens-basketball-league-unrivaled-now-valued-at-340-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/serena-williams-invests-in-womens-basketball-league-unrivaled-now-valued-at-340-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams invests in women&#8217;s basketball league Unrivaled, now valued at $340 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>Serena Williams has set her sights on new playing court: basketball. The retired tennis star has invested in the women&#8217;s 3-on-3 <span class=\"link\">basketball league, Unrivaled<\/span>, now valued at $340 million, the league said Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Williams participated in the two-year-old league&#8217;s Series B investment round through her Serena Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Joining her is former FIFA World Cup champion Alex Morgan, through her Trybe Ventures. Tennis legend Billie Jean King and other notable sports figures participated, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bessemer Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, led the investment round.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Unrivaled league claims to offer players the highest average salary in professional women&#8217;s sports league history. It began as a way for WNBA players to earn money in the offseason, without having to play abroad. Its second season tips off in January 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re continuing to align with partners who elevate our league and accelerate our strategic growth. With Bessemer Venture Partners leading this round, Unrivaled is in an unprecedented position for a new sports league,&#8221; Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell said in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, who retired from professional tennis in 2022 and is widely considered one of the game&#8217;s greatest players, has a net worth pegged at $350 million, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-time Grand Slam champion established her fund in 2017. In 2024, she described the thrill \u2014 and perils \u2014 of investing in early-state companies to the New York Times\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I love winning and being successful, but in early stage, 70 or 80 percent of the businesses fail that you invest in,&#8221; Williams told the outlet. &#8220;I don&#8217;t like that. Having to accept that is difficult for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If one of our companies ends up not doing well, it&#8217;s heartbreaking. A lot of times they don&#8217;t do well simply because they can&#8217;t raise funding,&#8221; she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation \">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">More from CBS News<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>    <!-- tags --><\/p>\n<div class=\"content-author\">\n      Megan  Cerullo<\/p>\n<div class=\"content-author__bio\">\n<div class=\"content-author__full-information\">\n<p class=\"content-author__text\">Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24\/7 to discuss her reporting.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serena Williams has set her sights on new playing court: basketball. The retired tennis star has invested in the women&#8217;s 3-on-3 basketball league, Unrivaled, now valued at $340 million, the league said Monday.\u00a0 Williams participated in the two-year-old league&#8217;s Series B investment round through her Serena Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Joining her is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1410,1409,1411,164,1407,1412,1413,1408,569],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loan","tag-basketball","tag-invests","tag-league","tag-million","tag-serena","tag-unrivaled","tag-valued","tag-williams","tag-womens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}