The WNBA introduced Monday it would increase to 18 groups by 2030, with franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia becoming a member of beforehand introduced groups in Portland and Toronto, which start play subsequent yr. The Golden State Valkyries are presently of their first season.
The previous few years have seen dramatic progress for the WNBA, which till this season had not expanded since 2008. Constructing on the rise of the ladies’s school recreation, an ever-expanding world-wide expertise pool, and a breakout star of worldwide recognition in Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has elevated its footprint within the sports activities world.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who took over her function in 2019, stated Monday that she sees this as “excess of growth of the WNBA, it is an evolution” and a “transformational funding in the way forward for girls’s sports activities.”
With the league additionally within the strategy of negotiating a brand new collective bargaining settlement with the gamers’ union, “transformative” is an correct buzzword for the WNBA now.
ESPN’s Michael Voepel, Kendra Andrews and Kevin Pelton have a look at Monday’s growth announcement and what it means for the WNBA and the person markets.
Why is the WNBA increasing now?
Michael Voepel: For years, the growth query got here up usually, and the WNBA’s leaders would say the identical factor: They’d potential possession teams in numerous cities however nothing was imminent. It grew to become a boilerplate response till October 2023, when Golden State was introduced because the league’s first growth staff since 2008.
That had lengthy been a goal space for the WNBA, which had misplaced certainly one of its authentic two California-based groups — Sacramento — after the 2009 season. Growth to Toronto, the league’s first franchise outdoors america, got here in Might 2024, adopted by the announcement of Portland in September 2024.
The WNBA is benefiting from the heightened curiosity in girls’s sports activities basically, and girls’s basketball particularly. New possession teams in the previous few years have upgraded services and dedication, and that drew the eye of different potential house owners.
It would appear to be it is occurring quick now, however typically that is how progress is. There was stagnation for a number of years within the WNBA ready for brand new funding. Take into account that the New York Liberty franchise was on the promoting block for greater than a yr earlier than Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai purchased it in January 2019 for what now looks as if an absurd low cost value of between $10 million to $14 million. However on the time, there have been many individuals who thought the Tsais had been doing the NBA a favor by retaining a WNBA staff in New York.
It is now believed the Liberty, who gained the WNBA title final season, have an estimated valuation of round $450 million. And there are a number of cities and possession teams who needed in on this spherical of growth.
How does this growth influence the $2.2 billion TV rights deal the league signed final yr?
Voepel: That 11-year deal agreed to in July 2024 did not appear to be it could age nicely then, and appears much less prone to now. The WNBA broadcast rights may nicely be price greater than that within the coming years. The excellent news for the WNBA, in accordance with sources, is that the league and its media companions can re-evaluate the rights charges after three seasons of the deal.
How does Monday’s information influence present CBA negotiations? What modifications are the gamers’ union asking for?
Voepel: An increasing league places the gamers in even stronger bargaining place as a result of it reveals how a lot higher curiosity there’s within the WNBA. Some of the necessary enhancements — constitution flights for video games — already got here to the league final yr. Getting that solidified in a brand new CBA needs to be a significant aim.
Issues reminiscent of salaries, different participant facilities, revenue-sharing proportion, roster sizes, the draft and the size of the season are all on the desk. This WNBA expanded to 44 video games this season and a best-of-seven Finals format. We most likely can count on a minimum of a 50-game common season is on the best way.
In its assertion Monday, the WNBA gamers’ union stated: “Immediately’s growth information reinforces what gamers, followers, and numerous metrics have already confirmed: the WNBA is prospering and a terrific funding. Because the league grows, it is important we safe a CBA that ensures gamers absolutely share within the success they drive.”
Engelbert, union govt director Terri Carmichael Jackson and union president Nneka Ogwumike of the Seattle Storm all labored collectively on the final CBA, which was signed in 2020 earlier than the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic hit onerous. In order that they have numerous familiarity with one another in negotiating. There’s mutual respect on each side, as a result of they not solely acquired that deal achieved, however they labored along with the house owners to ensure the WNBA had a 2020 season in a “bubble” in Bradenton, Florida.
That wasn’t a assure: Had everybody concerned not pushed onerous for the bubble, the WNBA might need misplaced a complete season and the momentum that introduced. A part of Engelbert’s legacy as a significant sports activities commissioner in america goes to be that important 2020 season and the expansion the league has seen since.
How is that this WNBA growth totally different from 1998-2000, when the league grew rapidly to 16 groups by its fourth season however then contracted?
Voepel: It is a very totally different world in each manner, from the expansion of girls’s sports activities, to how all sports activities programming is distributed and consumed, to different technological modifications like social media. Among the early WNBA growth groups had been thought of primarily charitable dangers as an alternative of enterprise selections, and people franchises — not surprisingly — did not final.
The WNBA launched in 1997 with eight groups: Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Sacramento and Utah. In 1998, Detroit and Washington had been added. Minnesota and Orlando got here aboard in 1999. Then Indiana, Miami, Portland and Seattle joined in 2000, bringing the league to 16.
The growth proved too quick, with some NBA franchises unprepared to really assist their WNBA franchises. Groups in Miami, Orlando and Portland lasted simply three seasons; the Orlando Miracle moved to turn out to be the Connecticut Solar in 2003, however the different two folded.
Cleveland was the primary of the unique franchises to fold (2003), adopted by Charlotte, which ended after the 2006 season, Houston (2008) and Sacramento (2009). The final two had been championship franchises with good fan followings however folded principally because of the international monetary disaster of 2007-2009.
Detroit moved to Tulsa for the 2010 season, then to Dallas for 2016, the place the franchise is now the Wings. Utah moved to San Antonio in 2003 after which to Las Vegas in 2018, the place the franchise is now the Aces.
Growth franchises joined the league in Chicago in 2006 and Atlanta in 2008. However till Golden State’s addition this season, these had been the one growth groups since 2000.
This new age growth — Golden State, Portland, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia — comes at a time the place WNBA franchises have been confirmed to have accumulating worth.
Golden State paid an estimated $50 million for its franchise, whereas the three new franchises introduced Monday can pay an estimated payment of $250 million.
Each staff was owned by an NBA possession group when the WNBA launched. Earlier than Monday’s information, that quantity had dropped to 6 of 13 groups. Is it important that half of the league’s groups will once more be owned by the NBA?
Kevin Pelton: In some methods, Monday’s announcement is the bookend to an period that began after the 2002 season when possession of franchises was transferred to particular person groups. Earlier than then, each WNBA staff was affiliated with an NBA counterpart, and several other NBA house owners — together with the late Paul Allen in Portland and, a yr later, the Gund household in Cleveland — opted out.
Impartial possession helped preserve the WNBA afloat over the past 20 years and was behind 5 of the six championships from 2018 by means of 2023, with the Las Vegas Aces and Seattle Storm profitable two titles every and one for the Chicago Sky. There’ll nonetheless be a spot for these teams, actually, nevertheless it’s now clear that NBA house owners need in on the WNBA’s monetary increase and have the assets and connections to outbid unbiased house owners.
Extra broadly, there’s been a divide within the WNBA over the previous half-decade between house owners who need to reduce losses and those that need to make investments closely within the product with a watch towards long-term progress. After paying a $250 million growth payment, it is protected to place the three latest house owners within the latter class, giving that group an amazing benefit heading into CBA talks that always pit house owners towards one another as a lot as they function gamers towards house owners.
Girls’s basketball gamers lengthy stated 144 wasn’t sufficient spots within the league. What does an eventual 216 participant spots imply? How does that influence the CBA?
Kendra Andrews: Engelbert has stated she views the addition of growth groups as the proper manner so as to add the variety of WNBA jobs quite than rising roster spots to preexisting groups. This, she stated, is less expensive to the league since including particular person gamers does not create extra income, however extra groups do. So, sure, the addition of 5 WNBA groups over the following 5 years will create extra jobs and create extra money.
Nonetheless, it does not deal with all the considerations the gamers have relating to roster development. WNBA roster sizes have been capped at 12 gamers since 2014. A number of groups have 11 gamers on their rosters, relying on their wage cap scenario. However accidents are rising, and the size of the season is increasing.
The present CBA offers hardship exceptions for groups so as to add additional gamers once they fall beneath 10 lively, however the ongoing negotiations are combating for an easier system that additionally creates extra alternative.
This may additionally be the chance to alter the principles round draft eligibility. Proper now, these eligible for the draft have to be school seniors, juniors who flip 22 within the yr of the draft or who will graduate inside three months of the draft, and worldwide gamers who flip 20 within the yr of the draft.
What did the WNBA appear like in Detroit and Cleveland in earlier stints?
Voepel: The Detroit Shock had been the primary staff to shake up the rapidly established powers within the WNBA’s first six seasons: Houston, Los Angeles and New York. The Comets gained the primary 4 championships and the Sparks the following two. The Liberty had been runners-up 4 occasions.
The Shock began 0-10 in 2002, prompting a training change that modified every little thing for the franchise and the WNBA. Invoice Laimbeer took over as coach and normal supervisor, bringing his NBA taking part in expertise and “Unhealthy Boys” type to the WNBA. He completed out 2002 at 9-13, however had two enormous skills to construct round in former first-round picks Swin Money and Deanna Nolan. Then the Shock added Ruth Riley within the dispersal draft from the short-lived Miami Sol, and the No. 3 decide in 2003, ahead Cheryl Ford.
With that core they beat two-time defending champion Los Angeles within the 2003 WNBA Finals, then gained championships in 2006 and 2008 with the addition of veteran Katie Smith. They misplaced within the 2007 Finals to Phoenix.
The Shock’s demise was as fast as their rise. Pistons and Shock proprietor Invoice Davidson died in March 2009. Laimbeer left after simply three video games in 2009, changed by assistant and former Pistons teammate Rick Mahorn. After the 2009 season, the Shock had been offered to an possession group in Oklahoma and moved to Tulsa. Davidson’s property offered the Pistons in 2011.
So there have been loyal, heartbroken Detroit Shock followers who had a three-time champion abruptly taken away.
Cleveland was a special situation: The staff did not have a lot time to ascertain a foothold in seven years. The Rockers made the playoffs 4 occasions earlier than the franchise folded. Cleveland has hosted two Girls’s Remaining Fours (2007, 2024) for the reason that Rockers folded in 2003. So the area has proven an curiosity in girls’s hoops over the past 20 years, which ought to bode nicely for the re-introduction of the WNBA.
What did we find out about Philadelphia as a professional girls’s basketball metropolis within the ABL?
Voepel: Daybreak Staley is probably going the primary identify folks consider with this metropolis and girls’s hoops. The South Carolina coach is a Philadelphian who performed for the ABL’s Richmond/Philadelphia Rage franchise from 1996 till the league folded through the 1998-99 season.
The Rage had only one full season in Philadelphia, taking part in on the Palestra from 1997-98, once they went 13-31. Underneath coach Anne Donovan, the Rage began 9-5 in 1998-99 earlier than the ABL ceased operations in December 1998.
So the Rage did not have the chance to depart a footprint in Philadelphia. However with town’s influence on girls’s basketball — UConn’s Geno Auriemma and former Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw are amongst many together with Staley who’re from the Philly space — there’s numerous historical past there to attach with for a brand new WNBA franchise.
How will the growth groups be constructed? How lengthy may it take for them to turn out to be aggressive?
Andrews: Like with the Valkyries, and the upcoming growth groups in Portland and Toronto, there’ll seemingly be an growth draft the place Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia can choose gamers from preexisting groups within the WNBA.
With every of these groups launching in numerous years, their growth drafts may look much like the Valkyries, the place they had been the one staff choosing gamers so that they did not have to organize for what one other staff would need to do. Whereas particulars for Portland and Toronto’s growth draft haven’t been launched, they’re going to seemingly take turns making picks.
Within the 2024 growth draft for Golden State, every of the opposite 12 groups may defend as much as six gamers on their rosters that might not be chosen by the Valkyries. The final time there was an growth draft for a number of groups was in 2000 for the Indiana Fever and Seattle Storm, in addition to the now-defunct Miami Sol and Portland Hearth. In that draft, different groups protected eight gamers, and the brand new groups every chosen six gamers after which crammed out their rosters within the draft, in free company and through trades.
Golden State’s technique in constructing its staff was to depend on established sixth girls, in addition to a heavy worldwide presence. The Valkyries did not land any of the highest free brokers or decide to pick out their face of the franchise by means of the draft. It is paid off because the Valkyries have already gained extra video games than their preseason projection. However normal supervisor Ohemma Nynanin stated she does not consider this can essentially construct a blueprint for different growth groups.