Women’s basketball’s elite WNBA has announced three new expansion franchises that will join the competition over the next five years, taking the league’s roster of teams to 18.
Teams from Cleveland (Ohio), Detroit (Michigan), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) will all enter the WNBA over the coming years as the league drives to broaden its presence across the US’ biggest sports markets.
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Cleveland will enter the WNBA in 2028, with Detroit (2029) and Philadelphia (2030) all joining the competition for a record $250 million expansion fee, which is close to quintuple what the league’s latest expansion team, the Golden State Valkyrie, paid in 2023.
Recently, a stake in the New York Liberty franchise was sold for a record $450 million valuation, illustrating the league's growing franchise value.
All three of the new cities boast current NBA franchises (the Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, and Philadelphia 76ers), meaning that there are existing basketball fan bases in these areas that the new team owners can look to galvanize.
All three new WNBA franchises are owned by the owners of each city’s respective NBA teams.
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By GlobalDataThe Cleveland franchise will be owned and operated by Rock Entertainment Group, a vehicle of Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, the Detroit franchise by Pistons owner Tom Gores (heading an investment consortium), and the Philadelphia franchise by Sixers ownership group Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment.
Speaking on the expansion, WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert commented: “This historic expansion is a powerful reflection of our league’s extraordinary momentum, the depth of talent across the game, and the surging demand for investment in women’s professional basketball.
In April 2024, before the WNBA announced its 14th (Toronto) and 15th franchise (Portland), Englebert said that the league was aiming to expand to 16 teams by 2028.
That ambition has now been fulfilled and will be exceeded by 2030.
At that time, Philadelphia was identified as a prospective home for a WNBA franchise, but Cleveland and Detroit were not, hinting that the two locales have taken strides in interest over the past year.
Other locations cited by Englebert at the time include Denver (Colorado) and Nashville (Tennessee).
Of the 15 teams that will be in the WNBA in the 2026 season, only two do not have an NBA team in the same market (the Seattle Storm did until 2008) and only one was an entirely new basketball market (Connecticut), highlighting the importance of a strong basketball market and existing basketball investment in a community to new WNBA franchises.
The increased interest in hosting WNBA franchises has been spurred on by the viewership gains the league has made over the past year, as well as the competition’s new lucrative media rights agreements with Disney, NBCU, and Prime Video, which will come into place in 2026 and run through 2036.
