WNBA Expansion Is Rapidly Accelerating

The deadline for WNBA expansion bids came and went on Jan. 30. At the time, those bids were believed to be for a 16th and final expansion team. League commissioner Cathy Engelbert had said she was aiming to be at 16 teams by 2028. The 12-team league has already committed to adding teams in San Francisco, Portland, and Toronto in 2025 and 2026, leaving just one slot open.

But could there be more? The enormous interest in the 16th slot, plus other recent events, suggests the league is not done expanding. Here’s where things stand in a few cities.

Boston

On Tuesday, the Boston Globe reported a local group led by former NBA player Michael Carter-Willams—a Hamilton, Mass., native—and actor Donnie Wahlberg are gunning for a team under a group named Boston Women’s Basketball Partners. 

The move raises multiple questions about the WNBA’s expansion plans, which Engelbert said at the 2024 WNBA draft was “to get to 16 teams in the next few years.”

“The Boston Women’s Basketball Partners group has not submitted a bid yet,” AJ Gerritson, a media executive involved in the group, told Front Office Sports. “We are currently exploring the best way forward. We are open to all opportunities be it expansion or acquisition.”

A league spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about the league’s current expansion plans. 

Wahlberg’s group mentioning “acquisition” is noteworthy. The Connecticut Sun play in Montville, 100 miles southwest of Boston, and are owned by the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut. Though the Sun have been one of the most successful teams in the WNBA, making the Finals or semis every year since 2019, players and coaches are currently fleeing the franchise over a perceived lack of interest and investment from ownership. Every starter from its 2024 playoff run has either left in free agency or been traded, and its team president publicly feuded with Marina Mabry on Tuesday after the guard requested a trade.

Relocation to Boston has been suggested before, and the Sun played a sold-out game there last year. But the tribe has said it has no interest in moving the team.

“It’s the fact of exposure,” Mohegan Tribe corresponding secretary Joe Soper told CT Insider in August. “We’ve been here for 20 years, and I don’t think we get the Boston footprint nearly as much.”

Cleveland 

Just two and a half weeks after bids were due, Sports Business Journal reported that Cleveland was “likely” to get the 16th team with a record expansion bid price of $250 million, with an announcement expected in March. SBJ also reported the league is reconsidering its original expansion plans and “could” go to 18 teams with Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Nashville, and Detroit all strong candidates to get the other two spots if they exist. 

Most of those ownership groups have strong NBA backing behind them including Detroit (Pistons owner Tom Gores) and Houston (Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta). Nashville’s bid has its own branding and the backing of WNBA legend Candace Parker. 

The league released a statement shortly after the Cleveland report. 

“The WNBA has received formal bids from many interested ownership groups in various markets and we are currently in the process of evaluating these proposals,” a league spokesperson said to reporters on Feb. 16. 

The Cleveland ownership group is led by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. Shortly after the SBJ story, a Cavaliers spokesperson released a statement saying the group was still awaiting its fate like everyone else. 

“While we are very optimistic about the competitive WNBA bid that we have submitted, we have not received any confirmation from the league about their finalists,” the team spokesperson said. 

Houston

Should the WNBA decide to expand its expansion plans, Houston seems like a logical destination given its history and market size. 

The city is the fourth largest in the United States. Houston and Philadelphia are the two largest television markets that the league lacks a presence in, and the city was once home to the now-defunct Comets, who won the league’s first four titles and set attendance records before folding in 2008. 

Fertitta submitted an expansion bid for the franchise before the Jan. 30 deadline, but was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as his ambassador to Italy in the new administration. A Senate confirmation hearing for the restaurant owner has yet to be scheduled, giving Fertitta time to explore the bid before beginning his new post. 

Should Fertitta get confirmed, he may hand day-to-day control of the Rockets over to his 30-year-old son, Patrick. Patrick Fertitta is the director of Fertitta Entertainment, the umbrella company the WNBA team would likely exist under, but he is part of the Rockets’ day-to-day operations and works with general manager Rafael Stone. 

“He’s got all the juice,” an NBA source once told The Athletic of Patrick. 

Should Houston get its bid in an extended expansion, that will likely be the case with the new team, too.