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The WNBA announced a new expansion team in Portland on Wednesday, marking the league’s 15th franchise.
“As the WNBA builds on a season of unprecedented growth, bringing a team back to Portland is another important step forward,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. “Portland has been an epicenter of the women’s sports movement and is home to a passionate community of basketball fans. Pairing this energy with the Bhathal family’s vision of leading top-flight professional sports teams will ensure that we deliver a premier WNBA team to the greater Portland area.”
The league confirmed in its announcements that the Bhathals will take control with Lisa Bhathal Merage as the new team’s controlling owner and WNBA governor, and Alex Bhathal as alternate governor. They paid $125 million for the franchise, per an AP report. The Bhathal family also co-owns the Sacramento Kings and are the controlling owners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns. The new WNBA team will start playing in 2026, the same year as Toronto.
The league started to tease the news Tuesday with a hint from the league’s official social media account just after 10 a.m. ET, posting: “You know what’s better than 14 teams?” along with a smirking emoji. The comments on the post immediately flooded with fans begging for a team in more than 20 different markets, with many clamoring to reinstate shuttered teams like the Houston Comets, Charlotte Sting, and Miami Sol. Others suggested more nationally televised games, not having as many overlapping games, a seven-game Finals series, more roster spots, and getting rid of commissioner Engelbert.
An hour later, the account posted again: “Feels like the right time to leak some news…” The post was deleted about half an hour afterward.
Engelbert said earlier this year she wants to get the league from 12 to 16 teams “in the next few years.” In addition to announcing Golden State for 2025 in October and Toronto for 2026 in May, Engelbert has listed Philadelphia, Nashville, Denver, and South Florida as places she sees the league expanding next.
Portland looked like a front-runner to land an expansion team before discussions fell through between the league and local entrepreneur Kirk Brown last fall. Engelbert told Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden in a letter that Portland is “an ideal destination for a WNBA franchise,” but potential upcoming renovations to the Trail Blazers’ Moda Center would punt the decision “for now.”
In August, Portland’s city council approved the purchase of the arena and putting public funding toward renovations that match the Blazers’ contributions. The renovations are expected to cost at least $61.5 million (but could be much higher) over the next five years, intended to keep the team in Portland until at least 2030. The WNBA’s announcement confirmed the new franchise will play in the Moda Center. The Bhathals have also committed to building the team its own practice facility.
The Portland Fire played in the WNBA from 2000 to 2002 before folding.
After Portland, there’s still one spot left to hit Engelbert’s goal of 16 teams. In August 2023, Engelbert met with investors and toured facilities in Denver, home of the American Basketball League’s Colorado Xplosion from 1996 to 1998. The city also has a group pining for an NWSL team.
Philadelphia also has a group centered on landing a WNBA team. 76ers co-owner David Adelman has expressed his support and said he’s offered to invest in comedian Wanda Sykes’s bid, but doesn’t think the two teams should have the same controlling owner—and he’s also having some arena issues. Nashville was recently named the home of Athletes Unlimited’s 2025 basketball league. A local sports authority board ran a study in 2022 that found major fan interest in bringing a women’s sports team to the city.
The WNBA had eight teams during its first season in 1997. Four of them have dissolved, while the Utah Starzz eventually evolved into the Las Vegas Aces. The league has had 12 teams since 2010.
The next expansion team to hit the league will be the Golden State Valkyries, whose expansion draft will take place in December. The yet-unnamed Toronto team will begin the following year, the same time the league’s new media-rights deal and potential new collective bargaining agreement will kick in. In two years—if rosters remain at 12 players apiece—the league will expand from 144 to 168 players.
The WNBA is experiencing exponential growth, largely driven by the arrival of its 2024 draft class headlined by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Attendance is up double-digit percentages for all 12 teams, viewership numbers are the highest in two decades, and, in July, the WNBA, together with the NBA, signed a $2.2 billion media-rights deal.
