Ever since she took over as WNBA Commissioner in 2019, Cathy Engelbert has been asked the same question from fans and media alike: when and where will the league expand? Yesterday, she gave them an answer.
Engelbert told a group of media members the league is “not in a rush” to expand the WNBA from its current 12 existing teams. She said the timeline for adding more franchises to the league is around 2-4 years from now. Engelbert had previously stated the WNBA expected to add two expansion teams by the end of the 2022 season.
“The first thing when I came in, I said, ‘OK, we have 12 teams in a country of over 300 million people. That is not enough,’” Engelbert said. “So that’s why we do talk about expansion, and you have to be in more cities to grow more fandom. So that leads me to be here today.”
Engelbert's latest statement comes after the league announced it would have its first WNBA game in Canada. She told The Athletic back in December the league is still considering all of its options when looking into expansion.
“Good news is, we have a ton of interest from a lot of cities,” she told The Athletic. “I didn’t think we would have that much interest. And now that we have so much interest, we really want to be thoughtful in how we look at where we’re going to be for the next — because this is a long-term commitment from that ownership group and the league.”
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