The WNBA Announces New Expansion Team In Portland

Awarding Portland with a franchise continues the league’s heady bet on cities with a strong love for basketball, particularly women's basketball.

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The WNBA has announced its intention to return a franchise to the Pacific Northwest. Portland will join the Seattle Storm as WNBA representatives from the region as an expansion team in 2026. 

According to The Athletic, the team’s expansion status was made public on Sept. 18. It will be headed by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who own the National Women’s Soccer League’s Portland Thorns. The pair also have NBA connections, as their father is Raj Bhathal, the principal co-owner of the Sacramento Kings franchise.

In a move that signifies the expectations for the franchise, and it can be argued women’s sports in general, but the WNBA in particular, the team will share the Moda Center, the home of the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers. 

According to Lisa Bhathal Merage, the two Portland basketball franchises are expected to operate in unity.

“We believe in the transformative power of women’s sports and are thrilled that the W will call Portland home,” Bhathal Merage said in a statement.

“We know that Portland’s vibrant and diverse communities will highly support and rally around this team. Our goal is to grow this organization in partnership with the Portland community, and we look forward to supporting the best women’s basketball players in the world when they take the floor at the Moda Center in 2026.”

Back in the early 2000s, Portland had a WNBA franchise, then known as the Fire. The late Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, owned that incarnation of Portland’s women’s basketball franchise. Despite a loyal fan base, the team had heavy financial losses and folded after only three seasons. Portland was close to getting another shot at hosting a franchise before those spots went to franchises in Toronto and Golden State. Awarding Portland with a franchise continues the league’s heady bet on cities with a strong love for basketball, particularly women’s basketball. 

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden pushed for the city to be given another franchise and, in a 2023 interview with The Athletic, expressed his belief that the city would support a WNBA franchise like they had many other women’s sports franchises, including collegiate basketball programs like those at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University.

“What the commissioner saw when she accepted my invitation to come to Oregon is, I think, unprecedented in the country,” Wyden said. “We mobilized, not just the Ducks and the Beavers and the Thorns and the Trail Blazers and the like. We showed that enthusiasm for a team in our community is unprecedented. I think that’s why when the final scoreboard gets posted, we’re gonna win.”

In a statement announcing the new team, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert said she believes that Portland and its fanbase will be good for the league.

“Portland has been an epicenter of the women’s sports movement and is home to a passionate community of basketball fans,” Engelbert said. “Pairing this energy with the Bhathal family’s vision of leading top-flight professional sports teams will ensure that we deliver a premier WNBA team to the greater Portland area.”

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