Just 15 days after the SLB season tips off, SLBW will do the same.
Cardiff Met Archers host B Braun Sheffield Hatters, the defending championship and play-off winners, in the opening match on Saturday, 3 October.
At Cardiff, four players are salaried while also studying masters degrees at the university.
The rest of the team are made up of players on scholarships, postgraduate and undergraduate students and others that are balancing a career in basketball with full-time work.
“I think there’s an opportunity to build something that people genuinely want to watch and follow,” Archers head coach Stef Collins, a member of Great Britain’s 2012 Olympic squad, told BBC Sport.
“Women’s basketball has shown what is possible internationally, particularly with the growth we’re seeing in leagues like the WNBA, NCAA College Basketball.”
Collins wants SLBW to build on the recent Women’s World Cup in Berlin, at which the United States earned a fifth successive title, beating France in the final.
“It was the most-attended World Cup in the modern era with over 230,000 fans in attendance,” she said.
“For me, it’s also about telling the stories of the players. They’re not just basketball players – they’re students, they’re professionals, they’re international athletes, they’re role models. If we can showcase that properly, I think there’s an exciting future for the Super league.”
The WNBA, the independent women’s equivalent of North America’s NBA, has been among the pioneers in women’s sports leagues across the globe.
In 2025, WNBA clips gained more than one billion views on Instagram, making it the most-followed women’s sports league on that platform, which Collins feels can help SLBW on its path for development.
“The WNBA is a really good example of what happens when you give women’s basketball a platform and make the players and their stories visible,” she said.
“But I think there’s also a lesson beyond the basketball itself. Women’s sport has shown that fans want to connect with the athletes, their personalities and their stories.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to market women’s basketball differently and allow our players to be themselves.”
