The WNBA has made another huge announcement regarding league expansion. Portland, Oregon is the latest city to be awarded a WNBA expansion franchise. This is great news for a city with strong basketball roots and a history of support for the WNBA.
The league announced the news on social media on Wednesday morning.
The WNBA currently has 12 teams but has announced plans to expand to 16 teams by 2028. The first of these new franchises will be the Golden State Valkyries, which will begin play in San Francisco in 2025.
A team in Toronto will be the next team to join the W in 2026. Portland will also join the league in the 2026 season.
The Portland franchise will be owned and operated by Raj Sports, which is led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. Raj Sports paid $125 million for the franchise, per Doug Feinberg of the Associated Press.
“This is huge for Portland. We are so honored and humbled to be the vessel that delivers this WNBA franchise to Portland,” Lisa Bhathal said. “And that’s really how we consider ourselves. Portland is this incredibly diverse, enthusiastic community. We saw the passion first-hand when we started looking into the Portland Thorns and this is Basketball City. So we’re very excited about the future.”
The WNBA has a history in Portland. The city hosted the Portland Fire for three seasons from 2000-2002.
WNBA’s increasing popularity coming at the perfect time for league expansion
The WNBA chose the perfect time to expand the league.
The WNBA has never been more popular. It started off strong when the W had its highest-attending opening month in decades back in May. May was was also the most-watched start of a WNBA season across all its broadcast networks. These include ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2, CBS, ION, and NBA TV.
One reason for the sudden surge in the popularity of the WNBA is this year’s fantastic rookie class. This year’s draft class was loaded with talent, highlighted by superstars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Clark and Reese in particular had strong followings during their collegiate careers. They gained huge followings after a few exciting games in the March Madness tournament.
The W is also fortunate that this occurred during a summer Olympic year. Team USA’s women’s basketball team continued their streak of dominance at the Olympics, winning gold in Paris. This brought even more national and global attention towards women’s basketball.
All of these factors have created the perfect storm for an increase in the popularity of women’s basketball.
The WNBA is incredibly fortunate to be expanding at just the right time, where they can take the most advantage of this momentum.
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