Huge information for basketball followers within the Pacific Northwest: Portland has been awarded the WNBA’s fifteenth franchise, with the group anticipated to hit the court docket within the 2026 season. This announcement marks a big enlargement for the league, rising from 12 to fifteen groups. Portland is the third new group to be introduced on this spherical of enlargement, following franchises within the Bay Space (Golden State Valkyries) and Toronto.
The franchise will mark the WNBA’s return to the town after the Portland Hearth performed from 2000 to 2002. The league has had as many as 16 groups prior to now.
The Portland group shall be owned by RAJ Sports activities, a gaggle led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who’re no strangers to the world {of professional} sports activities. The Bhathal household boasts over 50 years of expertise within the trade, together with being key buyers within the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and controlling homeowners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert celebrated the information, calling it a big milestone for the league.
“Portland has been an epicenter of the ladies’s sports activities motion and is residence to a passionate group of basketball followers,” Engelbert mentioned. “Pairing this vitality with the Bhathal household’s imaginative and prescient will guarantee we ship a premier WNBA group to the higher Portland space.”
Lisa Bhathal Merage, who will function the controlling proprietor and WNBA Governor for the brand new group, expressed her pleasure about bringing girls’s basketball again to Portland after over 20 years.
“For many years, Portland has been the worldwide epicenter of sports activities way of life, and immediately, we are actually the worldwide epicenter of girls’s sports activities,” she mentioned. Merage emphasised the significance of group involvement and appears ahead to seeing the town rally across the group when it begins play on the Moda Middle in 2026.
The Bhathal household’s sports activities legacy extends throughout a number of leagues, with Alex Bhathal serving as Alternate Governor and Richard Merage, Lisa’s husband and CEO of MIG Capital, becoming a member of as an investor and Government Board member. Their deep-rooted expertise managing skilled sports activities groups guarantees to convey top-tier basketball again to Portland.
Followers who wish to assist the Portland WNBA group early can already place deposits for season tickets via the league’s web site. The Moda Middle in downtown Portland will function the house court docket, offering a well-known venue for native sports activities fanatics.
Quotes
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden
“As we speak places basketball followers in Portland and all throughout Oregon within the ‘W” column,” Wyden mentioned. “Our metropolis and full state have constantly set the gold normal for supporting girls’s sports activities, and I’m thrilled the Bhathal household is increasing its dedication to girls’s sports activities domestically by bringing Portland a much-deserved WNBA franchise. I do know from internet hosting Commissioner Engelbert for a roundtable on the Sports activities Bra in February 2023 with girls athletes, girls’s sports activities executives and coaches that enthusiasm for girls’s basketball is off the charts. And I can’t look forward to this new group to tip off in 2026.”
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek
“Portland has a ardour for girls’s sports activities and the groups who play within the Rose Metropolis, making us the best residence of the subsequent WNBA group,” Governor Kotek mentioned. “From the Thorns to the Rose Metropolis Rollers to the Sports activities Bra, Portland embraces a range of athletes and followers. That is an thrilling new chapter for our metropolis and our state.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler
“We’re thrilled to welcome the WNBA to Portland, a metropolis famend for its vibrant sports activities tradition and deep dedication to fostering girls’s athletics,” mentioned Mayor Ted Wheeler. “This enlargement marks a big milestone in our metropolis’s sports activities historical past and underscores our function as a burgeoning hub for girls’s sports activities. It’s greater than basketball; it’s about energizing our group, enhancing our native financial system, and celebrating satisfaction in our metropolis.”
