← Back to the libraryWNBA

What does the Bay Area Phoenix's continental title mean for the WPBA, women's basketball and the Bay Area?

By McKinley Malbrough III, J.D., MS-HRM · Certified WNBA player agent · Former certified NBA agent

Published October 14, 2026. Last updated October 14, 2026.

This article accompanies the three-part series on the Women's Premier Basketball Association. Part 1 explains the league, Part 2 covers both Phoenix tournament runs game by game, and Part 3 explains why the sport needs development leagues. This piece asks what the title changes.

What did the Bay Area Phoenix win?

The top club title in women's basketball across North, Central and South America. The Phoenix beat Sportiva Italiana 87-82 in Santiago, Chile, on October 4, per FIBA. Colombia's Indeportes Antioquia had won the only two earlier editions, so the Phoenix are the first champion from the United States and the first from outside Colombia.

The final showed how they won. Sportiva outrebounded the Phoenix 60-37, but the Phoenix forced 23 turnovers and turned them into 30 points, per FIBA. All five Phoenix starters scored in double figures, and the win avenged their only loss of the tournament, per Valhalla. Rosemarie Julien, with 18 points in the final, was named tournament MVP.

What does the title mean for the WPBA as a league?

It answers the question every new league faces: how good is it? The WPBA was founded in 2022, runs eight teams of 12 players, and is sanctioned by FIBA, which keeps its players eligible for international play, per its FAQ. Before October, the league's level was something a scout had to take on faith. Now it has a continental title won against professional clubs from Chile, Brazil and Uruguay.

That proof is the league's most valuable asset. The WPBA says it has helped more than 100 athletes advance professionally at home and abroad over its first four seasons, per the same FAQ. A championship makes that pitch easier to every future player, sponsor and partner, and it gives the league's Combine, held in April 2026 during the NCAA Women's Final Four, a stronger reason to draw WNBA personnel and international scouts.

The honest caveat: the league did substantial late work to put a competitive roster together for the event, per Valhalla. A tournament team is not the same as eight summer teams, and the title speaks most directly to the league's ability to identify and assemble talent.

What does it mean for women's basketball in the United States?

It shows there is a professional path between college and the WNBA, and that the players on it can win abroad. The WNBA carried 217 rostered players across 15 teams in 2026, per WNBA.com, and unlike the men's game, it has no league-run development tier. Most players who miss a roster go overseas or stop playing.

Julien is the clearest example. She signed a WNBA training camp contract with the Atlanta Dream in 2018 after starring at Florida Gulf Coast, per FGCU Athletics, and eight years later she was the best player on the best club team in the Americas. Her averages of 15.6 points and 4.6 rebounds came in official FIBA club competition, per FIBA.

From an agent's seat, a championship on a player's FIBA record changes the first conversation with an overseas club, because the club no longer has to take the level of her league on faith. How those overseas deals are built is in how overseas basketball contracts work.

What does it mean for the Bay Area?

It gives the region two women's basketball stories in the same week. Five days after the Phoenix won in Santiago, the Golden State Valkyries swept the defending champion Las Vegas Aces to reach the WNBA Finals in their second season, as the post on the Valkyries’ Finals run covers. The Valkyries have sold out every regular-season home game at Chase Center, averaging 18,064 fans, per EssentiallySports. The Phoenix come from a league whose teams carry the names of Alameda, Berkeley, Hayward, Oakland and San Francisco, per the WPBA.

The two are not rivals. They are different rungs of the same ladder. The Valkyries are the top of the professional game in the Bay Area, valued at $850 million, as the breakdown of the Valkyries’ value explains. The WPBA is where players who are not yet on that roster keep competing, in high school gyms in Oakland and San Leandro each summer, per Valhalla. A region that hosts both a WNBA finalist and the champion club of the Americas is a region where talent can develop locally, which is why an agent scouts close to home in the Bay Area.

What has to happen next?

Money has to follow the trophy. Sending a full roster and staff to another continent is the largest single cost a club like the Phoenix faces, and the league runs on sponsorships, ticket sales and donations, as Part 1 explains. Defending the title will cost as much as winning it.

The ceiling is also rising. FIBA hopes to one day hold a tournament between the club champions of all four of its confederations, per Valhalla, a stage no American women's club has reached. Whether the Phoenix get there depends on the league turning a title into sponsors before the next edition.

How can players, families and fans act on this?

• Players: submit for the WPBA Combine or tryouts. Selection is based on performance, fit and readiness, per the WPBA FAQ.
• Families: weigh a FIBA-sanctioned summer league as part of the plan after college, alongside every professional path and what it pays.
• Fans: attend summer game days in Oakland and San Leandro, June through August, and give through the WPBA donation page.
• Sponsors: the league takes partnership inquiries through its FAQ page.

For transparency, the author counts the league's founder as a friend.