The WNBA is bringing a team north of the border. North America’s premier professional women’s basketball league is soon to announce an expansion franchise in Toronto, according to CBC Sports’ Shireen Ahmed. A formal announcement is expected in Toronto on May 23, with the team set to begin play in the 2026 season.
It will be the WNBA’s 14th current franchise and the first outside the United States. The 2024 season will be the final WNBA season with 12 teams. The San Francisco-based Golden State franchise, introduced last October, will play its inaugural season in 2025. The two will be the 19th and 20th franchises in WNBA history.
Kilmer Sports Inc. will own the Toronto franchise. The group is led by Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment. The 79-year-old helped bring the NBA’s Toronto Raptors to town in the 90s.
Toronto hosted a WNBA preseason game between the Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx last year that drew a sold-out crowd of nearly 20,000 to Scotiabank Arena. Over 16,000 were in attendance at Rogers Place in Edmonton on May 4 to watch a preseason clash between the Seattle Storm and Los Angeles Sparks.
The Toronto franchise will play its home games at Coca-Cola Coliseum, according to a source. The 102-year-old arena has 8,000 seats and is home to the Toronto Marlies, a minor-league affiliate of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert discussed the league’s latest plans for expansion before the draft on April 15. She said the league is confident it can expand to 16 teams by 2028 following the move to 14 in 2026.
Among other possible expansion cities Engelbert mentioned along with Toronto were Philadelphia, Portland, Denver and Nashville.
WNBA popularity reaching new heights
There’s an argument to be made that women’s basketball has never been as popular as it is right now. This past college basketball season brought multiple national storylines from the women’s game to the forefront with record viewership for the Final Four.
The national championship game between Caitlin Clark’s Iowa and powerhouse South Carolina was the most-watched women’s basketball game on record and the most-watched sporting event outside of football and the Olympics since 2019.
As for the WNBA, the 2023 season saw a 21 percent increase in viewership from the 2022 season. The league drew in its highest amount of unique viewers since 2008 while attendance increased by 16 percent from 2022.
This year’s draft, which featured Clark going No. 1 overall to the Indiana Fever, was the most-watched WNBA Draft ever. Its 2.45 million average viewers are four times the previous record. It was the most-viewed WNBA telecast of any kind since 2000.
The 2024 draft class is being labeled as “generational” with several other potential superstars possibly set to emerge.
The 28th WNBA season begins on Tuesday, May 14 with four games across ESPN networks. The premier matchups include Caitlin Clark’s debut against the Connecticut Sun and the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces hosting the Phoenix Mercury.
It’s an exciting time to be a WNBA fan and this season could bring a whole new crop of eyes to the league. Seeing a women’s sport grow as women’s hoops has recently is phenomenal for the overall landscape of athletics in the United States. The WNBA is at the forefront of it all.
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