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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Joe Lago

How Many WNBA Teams Are There? Running Through the History of League Contraction and Expansion

Caitlin Clark's Indiana Fever joined the WNBA in 2000 as an expansion team. | Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images

The WNBA has ascended to new heights, enjoying the peak of its popularity sparked by new exciting talents from the college game.

It began with eight franchises in 1997, and after the number of teams fluctuated over the next two decades due to financial instability, it is positioned to achieve the success that David Stern, the late NBA commissioner, envisioned when he pushed for the creation of a women's professional basketball league.

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