WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert had plans for the league to add one or two new expansion teams by the end of the year with hopes of those new franchises playing as soon as the 2024 season.
However, despite numerous expansion conversations, the league reportedly won’t meet its year-end timetable to establish the new teams, according to The Athletic.
The news comes after Engelbert spoke candidly about adding teams during the summer amid calls from around the WNBA centered on growing the game. In May, players voiced their concerns about the league needing to expand rosters and the league’s restrictive salary cap.
Currently, the WNBA is composed of 12 teams. The league has not expanded since 2008, when it added the Dream. Despite the expansion delay, Engelbert told The Athletic that the league is continuing to evaluate its list of potential expansion cities and possible ownership groups for those franchises.
“We’re now working with different investor groups, different ownership groups, on what would the arena situation be?” Engelbert told The Athletic. “Practice facilities? How do you think of season ticket holders? How do you think of the corporate sponsorship that you could bring in to the team? So we’re evaluating all that now in a handful of cities. The hard work on that does happen in the offseason. So we’re really into that now.”
In June, the WNBA reportedly narrowed its list of potential expansion cities to roughly 12, including Nashville, Oakland, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Toronto, per The Athletic. Engelbert’s latest statement aligns with what she shared in June, saying that the process is not a “clear or crisp formula” and citing that the league was “comparing what lessons” it had learned, what worked and what had not worked in the past 25 years while also wanting to “set up new owners for success.”
League expansion has taken somewhat of a back seat to some of the league’s other initiatives, including pushing for the release of Mercury star Brittney Griner from Russian prison. Beyond working to get Griner back on American soil, the league has produced $75 million in capital, increased the number of games from 36 to 40 for the upcoming season and been in “serious conversation with 10 ownership groups,” per The Athletic.
As Engelbert focuses on expansion, she stated that the league is not in a rush to award new franchises. No new team is likely to begin play until the ’25 season.
“It’s not something we’re going to rush it to just to say we expand,” Engelbert said, per The Athletic. “I’ve told so many business leaders this, and they all seem to agree with me. … I’m a big, big believer in let’s transform the economics and then we’ll expand, not expand and then hope that economics transform.”
