The WNBA is increasing to Portland by granting the league’s fifteenth franchise to town.
The group, which was introduced Wednesday, will start play in 2026 and be led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, the homeowners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns. The household additionally has ties to the NBA as Raj Bhathal, their father, is the principal co-owner of the Sacramento Kings and is majority proprietor Vivek Ranadive’s alternate on the league’s board of governors.
“That is the most recent milestone in Portland’s wealthy historical past of iconic basketball moments,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated at a information convention Wednesday. “It’s the proper backdrop for WNBA gamers to make an affect.”
The group will play its house video games on the Moda Heart in downtown Portland, the place the NBA’s Path Blazers additionally play.
“We imagine within the transformative energy of girls’s sports activities and are thrilled that the W will name Portland house,” Lisa Bhathal Merage stated in an announcement. “We all know that Portland’s vibrant and numerous communities will extremely help and rally round this group. Our purpose is to develop this group in partnership with the Portland group and we stay up for supporting the most effective ladies’s basketball gamers on this planet after they take the ground on the Moda Heart in 2026.”
The @WNBA‘s fifteenth group calls the Rose Metropolis house.
🌹🏀 #WelcometotheW pic.twitter.com/7Qqf0igffW
— WNBA Portland (@wnbaportland) September 18, 2024
Portland beforehand had a WNBA group from 2000 to 2002. The Hearth, as they have been known as, have been owned by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Although that they had a loyal fan base, the group struggled with monetary losses and folded after three seasons.
Information of the Portland enlargement additionally comes after town was below sturdy consideration by the WNBA to be the placement of its 14th franchise, which was later awarded to Toronto. A previous Portland bid for a WNBA group had been led by Kirk Brown, a rich businessman who had based the corporate that’s now known as ZoomInfo.
However such talks fell aside late within the course of, simply previous to a public announcement being made final fall.
In a letter final November to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, which knowledgeable Wyden that consideration of town within the league’s upcoming spherical of enlargement can be “deferred for now,” Engelbert wrote whereas it “grew to become clear that Portland is a perfect vacation spot for a WNBA franchise,” points associated to Moda Heart would forestall Portland from getting a group instantly.
Engelbert later instructed reporters at NBA All-Star Weekend final February “there’s positively extra to it. There’s all the time extra to it. It’s by no means one factor,” including, “it’s important to discover the fitting long-term dedicated possession teams with the fitting area scenario.”
In February 2023, Engelbert visited Portland for an occasion centered round ladies’s sports activities, led by Wyden. It was held at The Sports activities Bra, a Portland bar dedicated to ladies’s sports activities, and had appearances from outstanding ladies in sports activities from across the state.
That October, simply weeks earlier than Engelbert’s letter, Wyden expressed confidence in an interview with The Athletic about Portland’s probabilities of getting a WNBA group.
“What the commissioner noticed when she accepted my invitation to come back to Oregon is, I believe, unprecedented within the nation,” he stated. “We mobilized, not simply the Geese and the Beavers and the Thorns and the Path Blazers and the like. We confirmed that enthusiasm for a group in our group is unprecedented.
“I believe that’s why when the ultimate scoreboard will get posted, we’re gonna win.”
In an announcement Wednesday, Engelbert known as the WNBA’s return to Portland “one other vital step ahead” for the league.
“Portland has been an epicenter of the ladies’s sports activities motion and is house to a passionate group of basketball followers,” Engelbert stated. “Pairing this power with the Bhathal household’s imaginative and prescient of main top-flight skilled sports activities groups will be certain that we ship a premier WNBA group to the better Portland space.”
The Portland Hearth — and their mascot, Spot — performed three seasons within the WNBA from 2000 to 2002. (Sam Forencich / WNBAE / Getty Photos)
Rose Backyard Report’s Sean Highkin, who first reported information in regards to the Portland enlargement, stated that the Bhathals’ current relationship with the NBA gave them a big edge all through the method.
“It’s a basketball metropolis,” stated Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts, who was an assistant coach with the Path Blazers from 2013 to 2021. “There’s not numerous skilled sports activities, I do know that they help successful groups and it’s an excellent place in the summertime, so I’ll positively stay up for going there. With the College of Oregon and Oregon State, and the historical past that they’ve with ladies’s basketball, it’ll be positively a metropolis and a state that may help it, which is superior.”
Final Could, the WNBA introduced its determination to broaden to Toronto. It is going to start play in that market in 2026.
In April, The Athletic first reported the WNBA meant to broaden to 16 groups. Its thirteenth franchise, the Golden State Valkyries, is about to start play subsequent season and have already got bought 17,000 season-ticket deposits, which they stated makes them the primary skilled ladies’s sports activities group to go that mark.
GO DEEPER
WNBA enlargement Valkyries already eclipse 17K season ticket deposits
In April, Engelbert listed Philadelphia, Denver, Nashville, Tenn., and South Florida as different locations the league is exploring as choices for enlargement. The Athletic beforehand reported Charlotte, N.C., has additionally been in consideration.
“As potential possession teams clamber for a bit of the W, we anticipate to have extra information on the entrance within the coming months on enlargement, and the purpose stays what I stated at (final April’s WNBA Draft), to have 16 groups by no later than 2028,” Engelbert stated throughout July’s All-Star Weekend.
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(Picture: Steph Chambers / Getty Photos)