{"id":1801,"date":"2026-06-19T16:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1801"},"modified":"2026-06-19T16:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:13:21","slug":"exclusive-azzi-fudd-joins-project-b-the-international-league-chasing-a-billion-dollar-opportunity-in-global-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1801","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Azzi Fudd joins Project B, the international league chasing a billion-dollar opportunity in global basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Today, the calculation has changed. The latest example is Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 draft pick of 2026 and now a star on the Dallas Wings. She\u2019s the latest player to join Project B, <em>Fortune <\/em>is the first to report. Project B is an international men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball league being built by a former Facebook exec, the cofounder of Skype, and advised by LeBron James\u2019 business partner Maverick Carter. In early 2025, Bloomberg reported that Project B was seeking to raise as much as $5 billion as it works to make basketball the top global sport\u2014ahead of soccer. Cofounder Grady Burnett says that number was a \u201clittle high\u201d and the league has completed its capital raise; he declined to confirm how much funding the league has raised. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1799\">Black Friday already sorted the winners from the losers. Your industry is next<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Project B hasn\u2019t started play yet, but is planning to debut in January Formula 1-inspired \u201cgrand prix-style\u201d basketball for men\u2019s and women\u2019s players in six cities, including Tokyo and Valencia, Spain. The model is that underutilized arenas will pay Project B to bring international stars to their cities, allowing the league to build an asset-light business. \u201cIt\u2019s putting athletes on a global stage, connecting with fans in all parts of the world,\u201d Burnett says. Like the domestic 3-on-3 league Unrivaled, which has also emerged as an off-season opportunity for women\u2019s players, it offers players equity in the business.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>For Fudd, international play was appealing. As an elite college athlete, the 23-year-old has been busy training stateside for most of her life and is excited by the opportunity to travel. \u201cI want to be able to broaden my experience and go outside of just America,\u201d she told <em>Fortune<\/em>. Her dad, Tim Fudd, played basketball abroad and she grew up hearing stories from him and other players about their experiences in other countries.<\/p>\n<p>For the right player, international play can also be a business opportunity. Fudd traveled with Steph Curry to Chongqing, China last summer, and fans approached her with copies of Slam magazine, photos to sign, and custom Labubus. \u201cPeople who are fans of me all around the world\u2014I\u2019m so far from home, in a country I\u2019ve never been to, and people cheer for me, give me gifts, and welcome me with open arms\u2014it was such an unreal experience,\u201d she remembers. \u201cIt opened my eyes to just how much more is out there and how basketball can open the doors to so much.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also a different calculation for a post-NIL player like Fudd, who came into her professional career with more than 800,000 followers on Instagram and a similar following on TikTok. She already has major sponsorships in the U.S., like a deal with the hair color brand Madison Reed. She\u2019s not building a personal brand in the U.S. from scratch in her first year, like players of earlier generations. The additional opportunity for her now is building her fandom abroad; for the Chinese market, she\u2019s getting on the TikTok-like platforms Douyin and Rednote.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1797\">The Best Folding Treadmills of 2026: Expert Tested<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s incredible now is that players have that option\u2014they can go if they want, they don\u2019t have to, they can stay if they want. It\u2019s not forced,\u201d Fudd says. <\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Meanwhile, the WNBA and NBA are both becoming more international themselves. With this year\u2019s higher salaries after its new collective-bargaining agreement, the WNBA is attracting more players from outside the U.S.; in the NBA, an international player has won MVP for the past eight seasons. Burnett looks to soccer, which has multiple leagues that bring in more than $1 billion in revenue; he sees an opportunity to build the same competitive landscape in basketball.<\/p>\n<p>Project B faced some controversy due to reports it was funded by Saudi money, a hot-button issue in sports. Burnett says the league accepted no Saudi capital; it worked with the Saudi Public Investment Fund-owned entertainment vendor Sela, but he says that partnership is no longer active. <\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Other players who have signed on to Project B include Nneka Ogwumike, Alyssa Thomas, Kelsey Mitchell, and Jewell Loyd. The league hasn\u2019t announced any men\u2019s players yet\u2014and the men\u2019s league is poised to be more disruptive to the NBA, where the off-season is short and the league would conflict. Burnett has framed its strategy as \u201cextending the careers of established players\u201d from the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1775\">Four AI giants just raised $188 billion. Here\u2019s how to survive the Big AI-pocalypse<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2026 No. 1 draft pick signs on to a league that offers a new opportunity to WNBA players\u2014and could compete with the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Exclusive: Azzi Fudd joins Project B, the international league chasing a billion-dollar opportunity in global basketball - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1801\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive: Azzi Fudd joins Project B, the international league chasing a billion-dollar opportunity in global basketball - 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