Park Ji-hyun Joins Project B: A New Era for Women's Basketball
Park Ji-hyun has never been afraid of a new frontier. Now the Los Angeles Sparks forward is stepping into another one, signing on with the upstart international league Project B in a move that underlines both her ambition and the shifting landscape of women’s basketball.
The announcement, reported on Tuesday by the Korea Herald, came with a clear statement of intent: this is not a side project. It is a global play.
Seoul at the Center of a New Experiment
Project B will stage a training camp in Seoul from January 6 to 12, 2027, turning the Park Hyatt Seoul in Gangnam into a temporary command center for the league’s launch. Players, coaches and league officials are all expected to descend on the city as the project takes shape on the court and in the boardroom.
For Park, it means a rare chance to showcase her game at home while still in the heart of her prime WNBA years. For Seoul, it is a week-long glimpse of what a new, globally focused competition could look like.
Project B, founded by Jeff Prentice and former Google and Facebook executive Grady Burnett, is building from scratch. The plan is bold: separate women’s and men’s leagues, each made up of six teams with 11 players. A compact structure, but with clear global reach in mind.
A Season Built Around the WNBA Calendar
The timing is deliberate. The first Project B season is scheduled to run from January through April 2027, sliding neatly into the gap before the WNBA tips off its own campaign in May and runs through October.
That window has always been fertile ground. Many WNBA players head overseas in the offseason for both playing time and paychecks. Project B wants to pull that energy into a single, branded competition, with tournaments set to be staged across Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Two cities are already locked in: Valencia in Spain and Tokyo in Japan. More are expected, but those two alone signal the league’s intent to mix traditional basketball markets with global capitals.
A Financial Challenge to the Status Quo
Project B is not shy about its pitch to players. The league has said it plans to pay female players more than the WNBA and offer them an ownership stake in the competition itself. That combination — higher salaries and equity — goes straight to the heart of long-standing debates about pay and power in women’s sports.
The project has already attracted established WNBA names. Park will not be alone. Her Sparks teammate Nneka Ogwumike, one of the most respected voices in the women’s game, has agreed to play. So has Phoenix Mercury star Alyssa Thomas, a relentless, all-court force and perennial MVP candidate.
When players of that stature sign on, it sends a message: this is a league to be taken seriously.
Park’s Rising Global Profile
For Park, Project B is another step in a career built on breaking ground.
She became only the third South Korean player ever to reach the WNBA, a milestone that carried both symbolic weight and real pressure. Long before that, she had already dominated at home. Park was the first overall pick in the Women’s Korean Basketball League draft and went on to claim Rookie of the Year honors in the 2018–2019 season.
Her impact did not stop with individual awards. She helped Asan Woori Bank secure three championship titles, establishing herself as one of the faces of the domestic game. Her résumé stretches well beyond Korea, with stints in professional leagues in Australia, New Zealand and Spain adding layers to her development.
Now, with a firm foothold in the WNBA and a new role in Project B, Park is positioning herself at the intersection of the sport’s future — on both sides of the Pacific.
The question is no longer whether South Korean players can belong on the biggest stages. It is how far stars like Park can push the game as new leagues, new money and new ideas collide in the years leading up to 2027.
