$200M battle for WNBA expansion team signals league has entered a new era
The WNBA has never been more popular. Fans packed arenas this past season as rookie stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese became household names. TV viewership skyrocketed. And the league has primed itself for more with a media-rights deal that will pay out $200 million annually for 11 years.
It’s a dramatic turnaround for a league that struggled to bring in revenue during its first two decades. And the clearest sign that “the W” has turned a corner may be the avid interest in its next expansion team - in a city yet to be announced.
Around a dozen potential owners are vying for the franchise, which experts say could fetch up to $200 million. Among them are Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum.
“People see it as a great opportunity, and they’re clamoring for it because they feel like they can still get in early,” said Teresa Resch, president of the hotly anticipated WNBA team in Toronto, which will play its first game in 2026.
The league’s revenue doubled from $102 million to $200 million between 2019 to 2023. Attendance, even excluding the draw of Clark, grew 29 percent from 2023 to 2024 - nearly double the 16 percent growth from 2022 to 2023, said sports economist Frank Stephenson of Berry College in Georgia.
“The WNBA is certainly on a roll, and it’s understandable that they’re trying to capitalize with naming some expansion teams,” he said.
It’s something fans of women’s basketball have spent decades waiting for: a league that’s here not just to stay, but to thrive.
The process of choosing the next host city is fluid, said Fran Harris, a former player with the Houston Comets and the leader of the process of bringing a team to Austin. In addition to Austin, the list of candidates reportedly includes Philadelphia, Denver, St. Louis, Houston, Milwaukee and Kansas City.
“What surprisingly hasn’t been the biggest challenge is the capital,” Harris said. “The big challenge has been the competition. When we started talking to The W last year, there may have been three other cities at the table.”
Now, as WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters ahead of Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, the league is considering 10 to 12 locations for its 16th team. Cleveland, backed by Rocket Entertainment Group, the owners of the Cavaliers, was the latest to announce a bid last Wednesday.
The rush of bids exemplifies the newfound cachet of women’s sports, said Victor Matheson, a professor of sports economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.
“The owners are in it for something besides just the money, or at least they can be,” he said.
For much of the league’s existence, WNBA games were televised rarely and at inconsistent times. Several teams folded - including in cities such as Cleveland and Houston, which are now vying for a new team - because owners didn’t want to incur further losses.
This trend changed in recent years, with the league benefiting from intentional investment. When Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai took over the flailing New York Liberty in 2019, they moved the team from Westchester County to Brooklyn and outfitted it with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, including chartering private jets for travel. They ended up with a championship team in 2024.
The latest round of expansion teams went for record prices: $50 million apiece for the Golden State Valkyries and Toronto; $125 million for Portland. All three bids were won by the NBA franchise owners in the same city, with two of the three incoming teams expected to play at the same venues as their male counterparts. Season ticket deposits are in the thousands. The Valkyries will have their expansion draft Dec. 6 and will begin play in 2025. Portland, like Toronto, is still determining a team name and will tip off in 2026.
“I think we’ll have some people willing to pay more and willing to put up with financial losses just to be a part of the women’s sports movement,” said Matheson.
But even if you consider a sports team a billionaire’s toy, a smart investor is willing to incur only so much loss, said Dennis Coates, a sports economics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The fresh willingness to bank so much on the WNBA points to its long-term financial viability, he said.
That delights longtime fans.
“I truly believe this is the tip of an iceberg that will be truly massive,” said Jenny Nguyen, the owner of the Sports Bra, a bar dedicated to women’s sports in Portland, Oregon.
Nguyen, 44, said she has been waiting for the WNBA to return to Portland since the Fire folded in 2002.
“If we think about where women’s sports are now, it’s basically on the backs of really hard work and very little investment, very little resources,” she said. “All the things that take something from okay to awesome.”
Harris agreed, saying, “Never did I think this would happen in my playing lifetime … where there would be a legit league where we were getting paid, where we were on television, those kinds of things.”
Resch, the Toronto team president, said it’s up to leaders such as her to maintain the current momentum.
“We all have to push ourselves,” she said. “If we really want the league to evolve and grow and women’s sports in general, not just the W, we have to really push the envelope and look for ways to continue to break through.
“More exposure, more eyeballs. And then it’s our job, once they’re there, to keep them interested.”
For players, an expanded league means more roster spots. While the NBA has 30 teams, the WNBA has had just 12 in recent years. That makes the women’s league extremely competitive to break into.
Expansion also has emboldened players to negotiate for better compensation.
On Oct. 21, one day after the New York Liberty won the decisive Game 5 of the Finals, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association opted out of the collective bargaining agreement that was set to expire in 2027.
Under the current contract, the WNBA’s 2024 salary cap is $1,463,200, with players taking home less than 10 percent of revenue. In contrast, the NBA’s salary cap is just under $141 million, with players taking home around 50 percent of revenue.
Seattle Storm forward and WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike called the move a “defining moment.”
“Opting out isn’t just about bigger paychecks - it’s about claiming our rightful share of the business we’ve built, improving working conditions and securing a future where the success we create benefits today’s players and the generations to come.”
Maddy Westbeld, a forward at Notre Dame who is expected to be drafted in 2025, said women’s college players already are reaping the benefits.
“There’s brands and companies who are reaching out right now and it’s not even just like short term NIL opportunities that we can participate in,” she said, referring to the money college athletes can make from their personal brands, or “name, image and likeness.” “It’s planting seeds with different companies to where now this is not only an investment for me in this year particularly, but for the rest of my career.”
Westbeld added that excitement around women’s basketball players as fashion icons also has opened her previously “tunnel-vision mindset” to business opportunities beyond the game itself.
“Doors are opening left and right for whatever you choose to do,” she said.
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