None of which will be in Houston.
The WNBA is expanding to 18 teams over the next five years, with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia all set to join the league by 2030.
Cleveland will begin play in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia the season after, assuming they get approval from the NBA and WNBA Board of Governors. Toronto and Portland will enter the league next year.
“The demand for women’s basketball has never been higher, and we are thrilled to welcome Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia to the WNBA family,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “This historic expansion is a powerful reflection of our league’s extraordinary momentum, the depth of talent across the game, and the surging demand for investment in women’s professional basketball.”
All three new teams announced Monday have NBA ownership groups. Each paid a $250 million expansion fee, which is about five times as much as Golden State dished out for a team a few years ago. All three teams will also be investing more money through building practice facilities and other such amenities.
“It’s such a natural fit that when you already have this basketball-related infrastructure, these strategies, cultures that you find to be successful, combinations of personnel that you find to be successful,” said Nic Barlage, CEO of Rock Entertainment Group and the Cavaliers. “Extending that into the WNBA, is just a natural next progression, especially if you have a desire to grow like we do.”
Both Cleveland and Detroit had WNBA teams in the past and Philadelphia was the home for an ABL team.
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Engelbert said she was impressed with the number of cities that bid for expansion teams, a list that included St. Louis; Kansas City, Mo.; Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; Miami; Denver; Charlotte, N.C.; and Houston.
“There are a variety of cities that obviously bid, and one of those I wanted to shout out — because they have such a strong history in this league and their great ownership group — is Houston,” Engelbert said. “The Houston Comets were just an amazing one, the first four inaugural championships in the WNBA. So I would say that’s the one, obviously, we have our eye on. (Owner) Tilman (Feritta) has been a great supporter of the WNBA, and we’ll stay tuned on that.”
See here for the previous update. Cleveland was basically locked in, and Philly was seen as a strong frontrunner, but at that time Houston was thought to be the favorite for the 18th team. Alas, we ended up as Miss Congeniality. It seems likely there will be more expansion in a few years, so we’ll just need to be patient. The WNBA’s press release is here, and the Chron has more.
UPDATE: While an expansion team is off the table for at least the next few years, probably a decade or more, there’s another possible way to land a team, as noted in this story The Mohegan tribe, which bought the Orlando Miracle for $10 million in 2003, relocated the team and renamed it the Connecticut Sun, hired an investment bank in May to look into “all options to strategically invest in the team.” That could include selling a minority stake in the team or a complete franchise sale that could lead to relocation.
The Sun had been one of the WNBA’s most successful teams, currently on a run of eight straight postseason appearances that likely will be snapped this year with the team off to a league-worst 2-15 start after losing their entire starting lineup in the offseason. Off the court, the Sun is one of the few teams in the league without a dedicated training facility.
Relocation is never as exciting as expansion, because you’re inheriting whatever baggage the existing team had and you have the psychic guilt of their fans’ loss, but it can work. The Dynamo came to Houston via relocation and they won the league their first two years. And their former city (San Jose) now has a team again. That’s about the best case scenario. If it’s a real possibility here, we’ll know about it soon enough.