The WNBA is returning to Portland, Oregon’s largest city is getting an expansion team that will start playing from 2026.
The team will be owned and managed by Raj Sports, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. They paid $125 million for the franchise.
“This is huge in Portland. We’re very honored and humbled to be the ship that brings this WNBA franchise to Portland,” said Lisa Bhathal. “And that’s really how we see ourselves. Portland is an incredibly diverse, passionate community. We saw the love firsthand when we first looked at the Portland Thorns and this is Basketball City. So we are very excited about the future.”
The Bhathals began negotiating with the WNBA late last year after a separate bid to bring a team to Portland was successful.
“I think that from our point of view, knowing that the league is willing to come to Portland, has given us confidence that pursuing this opportunity will be well received by the league,” said Alex Bhathal.
“The idea of growing our space in Portland and being able to create a platform focused on women’s sports in the Portland market and really being able to establish a foundation and establish a foundation in Portland and make a mark as the center of the women’s sports market worldwide was something that was compelling and interesting to us and a great fit for the Portland community.”
The league’s third expansion franchise will be added in the next two years, with Golden State and Toronto getting two more. The Golden State Valkyries will begin play next season in Toronto in 2026.
“It’s great that the Pacific Northwest is locked in now,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Engelbert said that he wishes to have more teams in 2028 but he does not think that the league will be adding others that will start playing before 2027.
Portland had a WNBA team, the Fire, from 2000 until 2002 when it folded. That franchise averaged more than 8,000 fans when games were played at the Rose Garden. The new franchise will play at the Moda Center – home of the NBA’s Trail Blazers. The Bhathals will build a dedicated training facility for the team.
The Bhathal family brings more than 50 years of experience in professional sports, including serving as co-owners of the Sacramento Kings and controlling owners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns.
Portland has been a strong supporter of women’s sports from the elite Oregon and Oregon State college teams to the Thorns. The Bhathals bought the soccer team for $63 million earlier this year. The franchise averaged over 18,000 fans this season.
The city also had the first bar dedicated to women’s sports – The Sports Bra.
“If you look at our numbers, not just the presence of the Thorns off the charts, which is amazing, what you saw, in Eugene, what you saw at Oregon State, we knew this was going to happen. one of the best times in sports in Oregon,” said Sen. American Ron Wyden. “We have seen, in February of 2023, the possibility. So I can tell you that right now there are women playing in Portland. They returned to Roseburg, and slept in Hermiston. All the departments of our region are on this thing.”
AP WNBA:
-Doug Feinberg, AP Basketball writer
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