NEW YORK (AP) — Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever will face Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky in prime time to tip off the inaugural WNBA Rivals Week in August.

Other games will include two between New York and Minnesota in a WNBA Finals rematch; a matchup of projected No. 1 draft pick Paige Bueckers and Dallas against Clark’s Fever; and Atlanta’s Brittney Griner facing her old Phoenix squad.

The week will be sponsored by Ally Financial, a new partner for the league this season.

“You can have a great partnership, but you also have to have great activation,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a Zoom interview. “There’s going to be a full slate of games that week and that’s going to be a cool part of the activation.”

Rivalry week games will be broadcast on a variety of networks, starting with the prime-time game between the Fever and Sky on CBS on Aug. 9.

“The timing of that week is critical, because in August you start to really make that playoff push,” Engelbert said. “So it would be great to have those matchups during that period to drive that playoff push into September and crown a champion in October.”

The NBA has had a Rivals Week for three years.

Engelbert has mentioned in the past how important rivalries can be to grow the sport. The league started the Commissioner’s Cup in 2021 and that in-season tournament has helped spawn rivalries between New York and Las Vegas as well as the Liberty and Lynx over the past few seasons.

“To have two teams who are just competing extremely hard every single time they match up and every time you watch is great basketball,” Bueckers said. “So I think it was a perfect opportunity to start that — there’s so many great rivalries in the league.

This isn’t Ally’s first foray into women’s basketball. It was one of the inaugural partners with the 3-on-3 Unrivaled league that finished its first season last month. The conversations with the WNBA started years before Unrivaled came into existence.

“What Cathy and her team have done with the league, the cultural currency of the players, the media connectivity, the entire ecosystem, is just phenomenal,” said Andrea Brimmer, Ally Financial’s chief marketing officer. “To me it’s kind of the crown jewel of what’s happening in the women’s sports space.”

Ally has made it a mission to give equal advertising dollars to men’s and women’s sports.

“This very intentional focus on women’s sports has been something that have been not only words but deeds behind it,” Brimmer said. “The ability to come on as the new sponsor of the WNBA for us is adding another jewel to the family.”

Ally also signed Bueckers, the UConn star, to an endorsement deal. The company already has deals with WNBA players Breanna Stewart and Sydney Colson.

“Partnering with Ally is about more than just banking — it’s about people to make their money work smarter,” Bueckers said. “As an athlete, I’ve learned that success isn’t just about the game you play, but the opportunity and resources you get access to.”

Brimmer said Bueckers isn’t just a brand ambassador, she’s also an online customer.

“She uses the product and she’s got a lot of passion around financial education and financial literacy,” Brimmer said.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Track: 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary street course (clockwise) in Long Beach, California

Race distance: 90 laps / 177.12 miles

Media links: Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Entry List (PDF) | Trackside Media Guide (Interactive PDF)

Push-to-pass parameters: 200 seconds of total time, with a maximum time of 20 seconds per activation

Hybrid energy deployment parameters: Unlimited activation, with a maximum deployment of 415 kilojoules (kj) per lap

Firestone tire allotment: Five sets primary (hard) and five sets alternate (soft) to be used during the event weekend. Teams fielding a rookie driver may use one additional set of primary tires. Teams must use one set of primary and one set of new (sticker) alternate tires for at least two laps in the race.

X: @GPLongBeach, @INDYCAR, #AGPLB, #INDYCAR

Instagram: @GPLongBeach, @INDYCAR, #AGPLB, #INDYCAR

Facebook: @GrandPrixLB, @INDYCAR, #INDYCAR

TikTok: @grandprixlongbeach, @INDYCAR, #INDYCAR

YouTube: @INDYCAR

Event website: www.gplb.com

INDYCAR website: www.indycar.com

2024 race winner: Scott Dixon (No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda)

2024 NTT P1 Award: Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda), 1:06.0172, 107.317 mph

Qualifying lap record: Colton Herta, 1:05.3095, 108.480 mph, April 9, 2022

FOX Sports telecast: Practice 1, 6 p.m. ET, Friday, FS1 (live); Practice 2, 11:30 a.m. ET Saturday, FS1 (live); Qualifying, 2:30 p.m. ET Saturday, FS2 (live); Warmup, Noon ET Sunday, FS1 (live); Race, 4:30 p.m. ET Sunday, FOX (live). Will Buxton is the play-by-play announcer for FOX’s coverage of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, alongside analysts Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe. Kevin Lee and Jack Harvey are the pit reporters. A Spanish-language telecast of the race will be available on FOX Deportes.

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship begins its sprint portion of the 2025 season today on the streets of Long Beach. The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach serves as Round 3 for both the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) classes.

Here’s the Friday setup ahead of on-track activity and additional items to follow going into the weekend:

ON-TRACK SCHEDULE

A condensed two-day weekend sees most on-track time today around the 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary street circuit.

• Practice 1: 9-10 a.m. PT (local time)
• Practice 2: 1-2:30 p.m. PT
• GTD Qualifying: 5:10-5:25 p.m. PT
• GTP Qualifying: 5:35-5:50 p.m. PT

The Saturday race is at 2:05 p.m. PT (5:05 p.m. ET) on USA Network and Peacock and streaming internationally via the IMSA official YouTube channel.

LONG BEACH FIRST-TIMERS

Drivers getting their first taste of the Long Beach street circuit this morning include:

• GTP: Three of the four BMW M Team RLL drivers: Dries Vanthoor, Marco Wittmann and Sheldon van der Linde
• GTD: Tom Gamble, Casper Stevenson at Heart of Racing Team, Korthoff Competition Motors’ Seth Lucas and Kenton Koch, Gradient Racing’s Jenson Altzman, AO Racing’s Jonny Edgar

DXDT Racing’s Robert Wickens is also making his first IMSA start at Long Beach, but has past experience at the track in both IndyCar and Formula Atlantic competition. As an 18-year-old in 2007, Wickens qualified seventh and finished third in Atlantic in a field that also included future WeatherTech Championship race winners Jonathan Bomarito, John Edwards, Franck Perera and Richard Heistand.

Koch, who shares the No. 32 Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Lucas, also couldn’t hide his excitement of making his track debut here. After numerous exclamation points, Glendora, Calif. native Koch wrote on his Instagram story, “Finally get the opportunity to race in my home race after years of watching from the sidelines since I was a toddler. What a treat this will be.”

Both Heart of Racing drivers are keen to debut at-track as well.

“It looks like an awesome challenge. It has been a track on my bucket list for years,” Stevenson said.

Gamble added, “I’m looking forward to heading to Long Beach, it’s my first time at the circuit and it’s one I’ve always wanted to drive.”

FULL-CIRCLE FORD MOMENT FOR JENSON ALTZMAN

Gradient Racing debuts its new sprint lineup of Jenson Altzman and Robert Megennis in the No. 66 Ford Mustang GT3. Altzman has a unique “full-circle” moment this weekend.

He is both the first driver to ascend into Mustang GT3 by the ladder system (as a Ford Performance Junior Team driver), and his parents used to pace the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and IndyCar fields at Long Beach. At four years old, he used to ride-along – now he is returning to the race, driving the Gradient Racing Mustang GT3.

Altzman will continue in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport (GS) races as well with McCumbee McAleer Racing with Aerosport, so will pull double duty on weekends where both IMSA series compete.

Also of note, Gradient’s 2024 lineup of Stevan McAleer and Sheena Monk celebrate the one-year anniversary of their first race together at Long Beach. McAleer shared the team’s then-No. 66 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 last year and with Monk, drove to a fourth-place finish.

The pair now share the JG Wentworth-adorned No. 021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3, as Triarsi heads into its first Long Beach start.

Altzman Photo Courtesy Ford Performance