Everyone wants a WNBA team.
With just one spot left for the league to reach the 16 teams WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert said the league will have by 2028, the past week saw a flurry of cities enter the fray with deep-pocketed team owners and athletes attached. Englebert has said the final expansion bid will be announced later this year.
The league recently awarded expansion spots to Golden State, which will start play in May as the Valkyries, Portland, and Toronto. The latter two will start play in 2026. Portland’s winning bid marks a rare return to a prior market for the WNBA. Some of the latest cities to jump into the ring had prior WNBA franchises, too.
This past fall, Kansas City, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Orlando, Denver, and Austin were all linked to the bids with backing from big-name athletes like Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City), Jayson Tatum (St. Louis), and Kevin Durant (Austin).
This week, four more cities jumped in before the Jan. 30 deadline:
Houston: Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has been public for months about his interest in bringing a WNBA team back to Houston, where the Comets previously played and won the league’s first four titles. The team would play its game at Toyota Center, which still dons the Comets’ banners and retired jerseys. Fertitta submitted a bid this week.
Detroit: Pistons owner Tom Gores submitted a bid to bring the W back to the Motor City. The Detroit Shock played in the WNBA from 1998 to 2009 and won three league titles in the process before moving to Tulsa and then Dallas, where they now play as the Wings. Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp, Lions quarterback Jared Goff, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, and former Pistons stars Grant Hill and Chris Webber all joined Gores in the bid. In light of the bid, the WNBA filed a new trademark application for the Detroit Shock in clothing and entertainment.
Nashville: It’s not just NBA owners who want a WNBA team. Nashville Predators owner Bill Haslam and his wife Crissy submitted a bid for a team that would be known as the Tennessee Summit. The name would honor legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit. Former Tennessee star Candace Parker, who played for Summit and won national titles in 2007 and 2008, along with Peyton Manning, joined the Gores family in the bid. The team would play at Bridgestone Arena, where the Predators play, starting in 2028 and the bid comes with plans for a practice facility.
Philadelphia: Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns both the Sixers and Devils, submitted a bid to bring the WNBA to the City of Brotherly Love. The Sixers revealed their plans to bring a WNBA team to the city when they unveiled their plans for a new arena in South Philadelphia as part of a joint partnership with Comcast Spectator. The Sixers would be principal investors in the WNBA team, should Philadelphia get the bid, but comedian Wanda Sykes has been interested in the city getting a team and could get more involved down the road.
