Unrivaled Season 2 is off with renewed excitement.  The first weekend delivered plenty of eyeball-catching moments, including Paige Bueckers making her much-anticipated debut, Chelsea Gray showing who the defending champions are, and a new Unrivaled single-game scoring record by Dearica Hamby. But while the tournament continues to entertain the fans, behind the scenes, a serious criminal matter has arisen. 

A physician assistant from Oakland Park was arrested after security at Unrivaled reported she refused to leave the property, according to an arrest report. The information regarding her actions at the Unrivaled stadium is unknown. Via WSVN (7News Miami), Marissa Amina Kazim was taken into custody Monday night along the 7000 block of Northwest 75th Street, the address of Unrivaled’s newly built stadium. 

According to the police, she ignored multiple warnings before officers placed her under arrest for trespassing. When she was being taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, Kazim allegedly offered the arresting officer $1,000, later increasing the offer to $5,000, in an attempt to have the charges dropped. She said, “Just let me go, my family has a lot of money.” (according to the police)

She was later found with suspected co****. The report mentions that the staff at the correctional facility found “white powdery substance,” and the authorities deemed it was co*****. Kazim was booked on charges of bribing a public official, carrying illegal drugs, and trespassing, even after being warned to stay off the property.

While the off-court situation created an unexpected distraction for the league, Unrivaled also faced another challenge during its opening weekend: a noticeable dip in viewership.

Unrivaled Opening-Weekend Viewership Drop Too Early To Judge

On the heels of what was considered a wildly successful inaugural season, Unrivaled faces the uphill task of following up on it. Last year, the curiosity of the start-up and its format got people in. The novelty was enough. This year, the league is facing its first test. But it might be too early to call the opening weekend a failure. 

“Unrivaled Opening Day on Monday averaged 175K viewers during its primetime window of games. The afternoon window averaged 107K viewers. All that is down from 208K average viewership during regular season games in Unrivaled Y1,” the Athletic’s Ben Pickman reported. While on the face it feels like a huge drop, there are multiple reasons for it. 

“To me, when you dig into this a little bit, I think I kind of feel like I need to wait until the weekend ratings come in to really start to worry about this, because Unrivaled opened on a Monday night this year and the ratings were actually pretty comparable to their first Monday night last season,” Sabreena Merchant said on the Ringer. “Last year’s Monday night two-game slate averaged 140 184K. This year’s average is 175K. So, that’s really only a 5% drop off.” 

She also mentioned that the league has started earlier in January, rather than January 17. Because many players have FIBA commitments in March. However, it is a reality check for Unrivaled that it can’t ride on hype alone. The league has also lost stars like Napheesa Collier, Angel Reese, and DiJonai Carrington. While it has gained Paige Bueckers, she alone hasn’t been enough to lift the viewership of the entire league. 

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