Park Ji-hyun Joins Ambitious Global League Project B
South Korean star Park Ji-hyun is set to add another chapter to her fast-rising career, signing on to play in Project B, a new international basketball league that aims to shake up the women’s game on a global scale.
The Los Angeles Sparks forward, already a trailblazer in the WNBA, was confirmed as one of the headline names for the competition, with the announcement made on Tuesday and reported by the Korea Herald.
Seoul Becomes the Launchpad
Project B will plant its first flag in Seoul. A week-long training camp is scheduled for January 6–12, 2027, at the Park Hyatt Seoul in the Gangnam district, turning one of Asia’s most vibrant neighborhoods into a temporary command center for the league’s debut.
Players, coaches and league representatives are expected to converge there, using the camp as both a showcase and a staging ground. For Park, it means stepping into a major new venture on home soil, in front of the basketball community that first watched her rise.
A New Kind of League
Project B is the brainchild of Jeff Prentice and Grady Burnett, the latter a former executive at tech giants Google and Facebook. Their vision: a fully international competition with separate women’s and men’s leagues, each built around six teams of 11 players.
The calendar is no accident. The first season is slated for January through April 2027, deliberately avoiding overlap with the WNBA season, which runs from May to October. That timing opens the door for established WNBA players to compete without sacrificing their primary commitments.
Tournaments are expected to be staged across three continents. Valencia in Spain and Tokyo in Japan have already been confirmed as host cities, signaling the league’s intention to move quickly into major basketball markets in Europe and Asia, with Latin America also in the plans.
Money, Power, and a Different Offer
Project B is not just selling a schedule. It is selling a model.
League officials have stated that they plan to pay female players more than the WNBA currently does, while also offering them an ownership stake in the league itself. That combination—higher salaries plus equity—goes straight to the heart of long-running debates over pay and power in women’s basketball.
The pitch is already drawing serious names. Alongside Park, her Los Angeles Sparks teammate Nneka Ogwumike has agreed to join the project, as has Phoenix Mercury standout Alyssa Thomas. Their involvement immediately gives the league credibility and star power.
Park’s Expanding Footprint
For Park Ji-hyun, this move is the latest step in a career defined by firsts and fast climbs.
She became just the third South Korean player ever to reach the WNBA. Before that, she dominated at home, going first overall in the Women’s Korean Basketball League draft and capturing Rookie of the Year honors in the 2018–2019 season. She then helped Asan Woori Bank secure three championship titles, cementing her status as one of the most influential players in the domestic game.
Her résumé already stretches well beyond Korea. Park has played professionally in Australia, New Zealand and Spain, adapting to different styles and standards across multiple leagues. Project B now offers her something different again: a global stage built to coexist with, not compete against, the WNBA.
A new league, a home-city camp, confirmed tournaments in Valencia and Tokyo, and a promise to rewrite the economics of the women’s game—Park steps into Project B not as a hopeful prospect, but as one of the faces of a bold experiment. The question now is simple: how far can this project, and one of Asia’s brightest stars, push the boundaries of the sport?
