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WNBA commissioner "pretty confident" of expanding to 16 teams by 2028 – SportsPro Media
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Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said she is “pretty confident” that the league will expand to 16 teams by 2028, with the aim of adding a 14th franchise in 2026.
The league has already confirmed that a Bay Area-based franchise owned by the Golden State Warriors will join the competition for the 2025 season. Portland was expected to become the home of an additional team, only for plans to reportedly fall through due to concerns around the renovation of the Moda Center.
With levels of interest in women’s basketball growing among investors, Engelbert confirmed that talks are ongoing with “a lot of different cities”.
“It’s complex because you need an arena and a practice facility and player housing and all the things, you need committed long-term ownership groups,” she added. “The nice thing is we’re getting a lot of calls, we’re continuing to engage with cities.”
Engelbert mentioned Philadelphia, Toronto, Denver, Nashville and South Florida as markets that are all under consideration for expansion teams, and suggested Portland is still in the mix.
“Those are the cities we’re talking to,” Engelbert said. “But just last week we got calls from two other cities. These can either take a very long time to negotiate or can happen pretty quickly if you find the right ownership group with the right arena situation.”
The addition of more teams could boost the value of the WNBA’s next media rights deal, which Engelbert hopes will be worth “at least double” its current contracts expiring after the 2025 season.
The WNBA has recently announced renewals with CBS and Amazon, but Front Office Sports (FOS) recently reported that the league could look to unbundle some of its media rights from those sold together with the National Basketball Association (NBA) in an attempt to maximise revenues.
“This is an important year for us around viewership, around attendance, around all the qualitative and quantitative factors that go into the valuation of media rights,” Engelbert added.
“Because as I’ve said to my team, there’s not a day that we’re not — if we’re not working on things that feed into the valuation of our next media rights, we’re not focused on the right things. This is a really important focus for us.”
Engelbert was speaking to the media ahead of the WNBA draft, which took place in New York on 15th April. As expected, Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark was selected by the Indiana Fever as the first overall pick, marking her formal entrance into the professional league.
Clark’s college exploits have captured the nation’s attention, with Iowa’s defeat in the women’s March Madness final to South Carolina attracting 18.7 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, making it the most-watched basketball game in the US for five years.
The Fever are expected to be a major draw for the league’s broadcast partners, with the WNBA confirming last week that the team will play 36 games on national television during the 2024 regular season.
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Interest in women’s basketball has never been higher, with Clark headlining an exciting class of young prospects that also includes Cameron Brink and Angel Reese. The influx of young talent joining the WNBA is expected to lift the league’s profile further, with many draftees now household names following their college exploits.
The league has also seen franchise valuations soar considerably, with the Seattle Storm valued at US$151 million last year. The NBA’s Warriors, meanwhile, will pay a record US$50 million expansion fee over ten years for the Bay Area franchise, which could prove to be a bargain if the league continues on its current growth trajectory.
The WNBA has not added a franchise to the league since the Atlanta Dream’s entrance in 2008. However, with the sport’s boom in popularity, players and fans have called for an accelerated expansion process, given that only 144 players are currently able to play in the league.
Most of those drafted this week are likely to not be part of team rosters for the regular season because of the lack of open spots available. With other college basketball stars such as Juju Watkins and Paige Bueckers set to join the league in the coming years, the pressure is on the WNBA to make sure it creates space for every young talent – making Engelbert’s comments on the league’s expansion timeline particularly important.
Expansion for the WNBA also goes hand in hand with its media rights negotiations, as the addition of more teams would open up more television markets. It helps the league extract more lucrative deals too, as broadcasters will be keen to show more games because of an expanded competition.
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