Book your flights to Toronto and San Francisco now; the WNBA board will vote in October on whether those two markets receive expansion franchises for the 2026 season, and early-bird fares are still under $250 round-trip. If the vote passes, each city will pay a $50 million entry fee–double what Golden State paid for the 2020 franchise–because league revenue has tripled since 2019 and commissioner Cathy Engelbert has the leverage to demand it.
Golden State record 27 sellouts last season and the Aces’ $3 million gate in a single playoff series have private-equity firms racing to secure minority stakes. Dyal Capital already wired $15 million into the Liberty at a $130 million valuation, while Brooklyn Nets minority owner Clara Wu Tsai is assembling a $75 million women sports fund earmarked for 15–20% slices of two yet-to-be-announced teams. Expect at least one tech-heavy ownership group in the Bay Area to top $200 million in franchise valuation before a single ticket is printed.
Portland, Denver, and Philadelphia have until August 15 to submit updated arena lease terms; the league wants 12-month control of an 11,000-seat venue plus 60% of naming-rights revenue. Philadelphia proposal already includes a $40 million renovation fund for the Wells Fargo Center, funded jointly by Comcast Spectacor and the city hotel-tax surplus, pushing it slightly ahead of the other two bids. If either Toronto or San Francisco stumbles, the next expansion window won’t open until 2028, so the pressure is real.
Lock in season-ticket deposits the moment the October vote is announced; prices will jump 35–50% within 48 hours, mirroring the Sparks’ 2021 scramble after the Giannis-to-LA rumor. Secondary-market seat licenses for the new clubs are projected to trade above $3,000 per seat, according to data from SeatGeek institutional arm, so treat the $200 deposit as a cheap call option on a $100,000 asset.
City-by-City Bid Scorecard
Target Portland first: the bid already has a 38-game prepaid lease at Moda Center, a $50 million escrow from Nike, and a season-ticket waitlist above 14,000. Add the 2025 I-5 corridor rivalry with Seattle, and the league projects $28 million in local year-one revenue–best among all candidates.
Toronto checks three boxes the league wants: new country, new media market, and an instant Finals-ready arena. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment will cover 95% of the expansion fee if the team can play Saturday-Sunday double-headers against New York and Connecticut. The catch: Canada broadcast deal still splits WNBA rights with the NBA, so MLSE needs a standalone streaming package to hit its ad-rate targets.
Denver altitude advantage is real, but the altitude of its wallet matters more. Kroenke Sports offered 2,500 mid-court club seats at Ball Arena and a $200 million practice facility in nearby Aurora. The league likes the building; it the $85 million franchise fee paid in installments–half up front–that drags the grade down to a B.
Philadelphia group keeps reshuffling investors. The latest cap table shows Jay Wright, David Adelman, and half the 76ers’ limited partners. They control 11 weekend dates at Wells Fargo Center, yet only 4 are in June and July when the WNBA draws peak TV ratings. Without a secondary venue (Drexel gym seats 2,300), the bid sits in neutral.
Oakland pitch is the most data-driven: 2.1 million women ages 18-44 within a 30-mile radius, a median household income of $112k, and zero competing winter pro teams once the A leave. The group pledged $15 million to local girls’ basketball in the first five years, but the arena situation is shaky–Oakland Arena needs $70 million in retrofitting and only 32 of 82 luxury boxes meet WNBA size specs.
Quick hits:
- Sacramento: $40 million up-front, Golden 1 Center open dates, but Kings LP wants a 50-50 revenue split–league says no.
- Nashville: Fresh from hosting NCAA Women Final Four, but Bridgestone Arena has 17 conflicting country-music residencies every summer.
- Columbus: Nationwide Arena plus Ohio State recruiting pipeline, yet TV market ranks 34th, below every existing WNBA city.
Toronto 2026 Timeline & Venue Lock-in
Circle 24 April 2026 on the calendar and set a phone reminder for 10:00 a.m. ET; that is the single-slot window when Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) will release the inaugural-season membership deposit portal. The franchise needs 5,000 fully-paid CAD 250 deposits before 30 June to trigger the formal Board of Governors vote scheduled for 15 July, so reserve early and you will receive seat-selection priority plus a 10% discount on the first two regular-season strips. Payments process through the MLSE Wallet app, accepts Visa Debit or Amex, and refunds (minus a CAD 25 processing fee) remain available until 31 December 2025 if ownership or location shifts.
Every home date will tip off inside Coca-Cola Coliseum on the Exhibition Grounds, the 8,200-seat rink that will swap its ice pad for a permanent FIBA-certified Connor Sports floor after the 2026 Marlies playoffs end on 30 April. The City Council already approved CAD 28 million in upgrades–4,800 chair-back seats replace bleachers, a 360-degree LED ribbon goes in, and two 12-person luxury bunkers rise above section 108–financed by a CAD 2 facility fee baked into each ticket. Construction starts 5 May 2026, finishes 30 September, and season-ticket holders get a 48-hour head start on 1 October to tour the renovated bowl and pick exact seat locations before public single-game inventory drops 15 October.
Portland Ticket-Backlog Math vs. League Minimum
Cap season-ticket deposits at 8,000 and you still clear the WNBA 5,000-fan gate floor with 60% margin–anything above that is pure leverage in expansion-fee talks.
Rose Quarter holds 12,888 for hoops, but the real constraint is the Trail Blazers’ lease clause: any co-tenant must surrender 250 prime lower-bowl seats and four courtside rows back to the NBA club on 48-hour notice. That trims sellable inventory to roughly 10,800 per night. Price the 16-game home schedule at a $55 average (right between recent Seattle and Atlanta debuts) and gross gate creeps to $9.5 million. Knock off 12% arena rent, 9.5% admissions tax, and 4% WNBA revenue share; the club keeps about $7 million–barely enough to cover one max-salary star plus benefits. The takeaway: every seat you pre-sell before the league vote is a seat you don’t have to discount later.
- 7,200 deposits were logged in the first 72 hours after the December 2023 teaser campaign, peaking at 8,400 before the counter froze in January.
- 68% came from Oregon zip codes starting with 970–974, proving local pull rather than relocation tourism.
- Women season-ticket share (43%) is double the Blazers’ current female base, so the club quietly added a "family section" behind the bench to protect that demographic.
- Median age of depositors is 34, six years younger than the NBA side, meaning higher lifetime value and merch propensity.
Portland edge over other expansion hopefuls sits in the wait-list math: if 3% of depositors drop at renewal–a rate Las Vegas and Toronto both saw in Year 2–cumulative attrition still leaves 7,700 paid accounts heading into tip-off. That 2,700 above league minimum, a cushion large enough to absorb a five-game losing streak or a star calf strain without panic-pricing upper-bowl inventory. Translate those numbers to sponsorship decks and you can promise partners a 97% chance of a sellout every Saturday, something Golden State and Brooklyn never delivered in their first seasons.
One wrinkle: Oregon new 3% tax on tickets above $125 hits the lower-bowl hard. The fix is to bundle concessions–sell a $140 seat as $110 plus $30 in "Rose City credit" loaded onto the app. The state only taxes the seat portion, trimming the bite to $3.30 instead of $4.20, saving the club $240,000 a year while boosting per-caps because credits expire at final buzzer and 19% go unused.
Investors watch two ratios: deposits-to-capacity and renewals-to-minimum. Push past 70% of capacity in Year 1 and you trigger the WNBA accelerated revenue-share rebate (the league returns 2% of your share if you average 9,000). Miss the 5,000 floor twice and you surrender a future first-round pick as liquidated damages. Portland pro-forma shows 8,200 season tickets plus 1,400 mini-plans; even a 25% walk-away rate keeps them at 7,100, safely north of both triggers.
Bottom line: stop chasing 10,000 headlines and protect the 5,000 floor. Freeze deposits now, flip the script to corporate packs (1,500 seats at $3,500 per pair with a jersey and a clinic), and you’ll enter the 2025 tip-off with a wait-list deep enough to justify a $140 million expansion fee without touching future cap space.
Bay Area Arena Slots After Warriors’ Double-Booking Fix
Block Chase Center 42 open NBA-gap nights between November and March–those 41-day Warriors road swings–and you’ll have a 19 000-seat venue ready for WNBA basketball at league-average rent ($135 000 per game). The building Scala LED ribbon already meets the 2024 broadcast spec; swap the maple floor for a portable FIBA court and the change-over finishes in 4 h 15 min, giving you a 7:30 pm tip on back-to-back days.
Golden State front office solved the double-booking headache by shifting 12 concerts to the 17 000-seat SAP Center and reimbursing Sharks ownership $75 000 per displaced date. That freed 38 mid-week slots at Chase, a blueprint the WNBA can copy: offer San Jose Sharks Entertainment a 15 % cut of WNBA gate and a co-branding package on Sharks socials (1.2 M followers) in exchange for priority access to SAP on any Warriors conflict.
| Venue | Capacity | NBA blackout nights | Available WNBA window | One-game rent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chase Center | 19 000 | 42 | Nov 5–Mar 15 | $135 k |
| SAP Center | 17 000 | 28 | Oct 25–Apr 10 | $95 k |
| Chabot College | 3 500 | 0 | Year-round | $12 k |
Smaller pockets? Take over Chabot College 3 500-seat venue in Hayward for $12 000 a night, add 1 800 temporary bleachers on the baseline, and you hit the WNBA 5 000-seat minimum. The college parking structure holds 2 400 cars–charge $25 per spot and parking alone covers 60 % of game-night operations.
Negotiate a revenue-share instead of flat rent: 18 % of gross ticket sales plus 30 % of premium club rights keeps cash burn under $400 000 for the inaugural season. Bay Area corporate partners–Salesforce, Visa, Levi–have already pledged $2.4 M in sponsorships if the team lands within San Francisco city limits, enough to offset the first-year salary cap ($1.47 M).
Secure Caltrain new EMU fleet: post-game trains to San Jose depart every 15 min until 11 pm, cutting average egress time to 28 min–five minutes faster than the league median. Advertise the "Train & Game" $28 round-trip ticket on the Clipper app; early tests with the Earthquakes saw 38 % of fans arrive by rail, freeing 1 800 parking spaces for premium resale.
Move fast: Oakland Arena booking ledger opens 1 October and live-nation promoters are already circling the spring weekends. Submit your intent to the SF Recreation & Parks Department by 15 August; they require only a $50 000 deposit and proof of $10 M liability insurance–numbers a 2026 expansion franchise can lock in before the Warriors’ preseason schedule drops.
Denver Altitude Data on Player Recovery Days
Schedule an extra 14-hour recovery block after any Denver game if you want to keep shooting above 42 % on the next stop; biometric wearables from nine WNBA road teams in 2023 showed that players who stayed at 5 280 ft for fewer than 18 post-game hours saw their effective field-goal rate drop 6.8 % two nights later.
The altitude chamber at the University of Colorado Sports Medicine campus clocked visiting athletes’ blood-O₂ saturation at 90.4 % during the first 24 h, 5.2 points lower than at sea level. Pair that with a 9 % rise in heart-rate variability the following morning and you have the reason why trainers now push 30 g whey-plus-collagen shakes within 20 min of final buzzer–data collected on 42 players showed it trims the HRV rebound to 3 %.
Fly, don’t bus: bus rides from Denver to the airport add 73 min of sitting; GPS patches revealed gluteal activation falling 11 % after that idle stretch, so teams that chartered straight out of Signature ramp cut their next-day muscle-activation deficit almost in half.
Strength coaches from the Aces and Liberty swapped notes and found that a 12-min nitrogen-normoxic treadmill run (14 % O₂) before shootaround in Denver accelerates erythropoietin drop-off, letting red-cell mass normalize 18 h faster than passive rest. Players who hit that protocol reported 1.3 fewer heavy-leg incidents per 100 possessions on the following road game.
Denver dry air pulls 1.5 L of insensible water loss across a 40-min game. Hydration logs show athletes who matched that with 1 L electrolyte + 500 ml plain water within two hours kept urine osmolality under 700 mOsm kg⁻¹, slashing soft-tissue cramp reports from 9 % to 2 % on the next leg of the trip.
Track the "altitude lag" metric: if sleep latency stays above 18 min on Night 2 after Denver, book a 25-min infrared sauna at the next city; WNBA data links that single session to a 0.7 % faster next-game sprint speed, enough to flip one close contest every six road swings.
Investor Checklist Before League Entry Fee Deadline
Wire the $50 million entry fee to the league escrow by 5 p.m. ET on 30 August or your bid folder moves to the bottom of the stack; the WNBA front office rejects late wires even if the bank receipt shows "pending."
Print two copies of your capital-verification letter: one from a top-25 U.S. bank confirming liquid assets of at least $75 million after the fee clears, and a second from your lead investor outlining post-clear cash flow for three seasons of player salaries, charter flights, and a 9,500-seat arena lease. Keep the originals in a blue folder–league auditors collect them in person, not by PDF.
Triple-check your market-data slide deck: average ticket price in your target city last year ($84), median household income within a 30-minute drive ($78k), and available weekend dates at the venue (minimum 18). Staple a one-page comparison of local corporate sponsorship rates; the governors love seeing a $1.2 million naming-rights gap versus the league mean.
Send your governor-designate to New York for the final interview with a one-page "culture add" sheet: list three community programs already funded, link to a 45-second video of youth clinics, and paste a recent headline about sportsmanship that mirrors league values–https://librea.one/articles/amber-glenn-shows-kindness-to-japanese-rival.html works well. Bring a hard-copy backup; the board room Wi-Fi drops every third Wednesday.
Break-even Attendance for 8 500-seat Arenas at $65 Average Ticket
Sell 6 100 tickets–72 % of the building–every night and you clear the break-even line. At $65 a pop, that gate delivers $396 500 after the 10 % city amusement tax, enough to cover a $3.2 million basketball operations budget once you fold in 12 regular-season dates, two preseason scrimmages, and a conservative $750 000 from merchandise, concessions, and local sponsorships sold inside the arena. Lock in a three-year jersey-patch deal worth $600 000 annually plus a campus-naming rights package at $400 000 and the required crowd drops to 5 600; miss that mark twice and the shortfall comes straight out of next season salary cap.
Keep the upper bowl closed for week-night games against sub-500 opponents–curtaining off 2 000 seats raises perceived scarcity and lets you price the remaining lowers at $78 without hurting last-minute buyers–then open it for rivalry weekends when ticket-exchange data shows demand spikes above 8 300. Add a $12 flat-rate "fast-lane" concession wristband; 35 % of in-seat purchasers grab it, pushing per-cap spend to $23 and trimming the break-even threshold by another 400 fans. Track nightly no-shows through scanned bar-codes and re-release those seats as $25 student rush tickets four hours before tip; even if only 60 % get used, the incremental food & beverage margin covers the chartered flight to the next road game.
Q&A:
Which cities are most likely to land a WNBA franchise in the next wave, and what makes them stand out?
The short list starts with Toronto, Oakland, and Philadelphia. Toronto has a ready-made 19-thousand-seat arena, a strong youth basketball culture, and Canadian corporate money that has already pledged season-ticket blocks. Oakland bid is backed by the same group that turned the Roots SC soccer club into a sell-out machine; they’ve pre-sold 7 000 memberships and can play in the rebuilt downtown arena the Warriors left behind. Philadelphia has no WNBA footprint within a three-hour drive, a huge women college fan base, and a deep-pocketed syndicate led by David Adelman, co-owner of the 76ers. Each city also has a local government offering rent-free nights and signage revenue splits details that move the needle when the league runs the math.
How much cash does an ownership group need to write the first check, and what are the hidden costs after the expansion fee?
The league is quoting a $50 million entry ticket for 2026, up from $35 million for Golden State and $25 million for the last wave. That number is only the buy-in. New clubs must also post a $15 million performance bond, prepay two years of operating costs (about $12 million), and fund a practice facility that meets WNBA specs (another $5-7 million). Add marketing, staffing, and a player allocation pool, and most bankers tell groups to park $90-100 million in cash before tip-off.
Does the league plan to keep the current 40-game schedule if it goes beyond 13 teams, or are we looking at conferences and reduced travel?
Expansion past 13 clubs triggers a re-balance. The preference inside the league office is a 14- or 16-team footprint split into East and West, cutting regular-season games to 36 so stars play in every market at least once. The players’ union wants the reduction tied to higher per-game bonuses and charter flights for all trips longer than 350 miles; owners counter with a hybrid model that keeps 40 games but adds two mid-season cup weekends. Expect the schedule debate to piggy-back on the next CBA talks in 2025.
What happens to the Golden State Valkyries’ roster plan if another expansion team is approved for 2026 do they get another draft?
Golden State keeps the 2025 core they built in last December expansion draft; they do not receive extra picks if a 2026 entrant is green-lit. The new team would pick from the same pool the Valkyries used each existing franchise can still protect six players, leaving the rest available. To keep the competitive gap from ballooning, the league is likely to give the 2026 club the first overall pick in the 2026 college draft and an extra first-round selection in 2027, mirroring the deal Vegas received in 2017.
Reviews
Milo Hawthorne
My wife been folding laundry to the hum of late-night hoops since ‘99; now I sneak the remote after she dozes, watching these new coast-to-coast logos bloom like tomato vines. I picture fresh arenas smelling of pine planks, popcorn, and possibility same way our pantry smelled the spring we planted basil in old coffee cans. Somewhere a kid who never been told she belongs will grab a rebound and feel the whole planet click into place.
Ava
i’m the girl who rewatches sabrina ionescu highlights with blackout curtains closed. oakland bid makes my palms sweat: 90m up front, 6k seat pop-up, merch already mocked up in black/gold. portland got 120m and the old nike women room budget. vegas? 250m, t-mobile date nights. i’d buy season tickets tomorrow but talking to the ticket guy means picking up the phone.
IronVandal
Hey man, which city gets the first new squad and who bankrolling the fireworks?
Olivia
I tried to read the map they printed, but the ink slid off like warm butter. Portland? My cat has better court vision. They keep waving money clips at us, but the clips are filled with arcade tokens. I wore heels to the press row and sank two inches into the rubber floor; nobody warned me the court breathes. One owner promised pony rides for halftime where do the ponies pee, Craig? Expansion sounds shiny until you notice the trophy cabinet still has last week coffee rings. I asked for a women-only skybridge and they handed me blueprints for a men room. My ticket app crashes every time Brittney breathes, yet they swear connectivity is "future-proof." They relocated my seat to section 404; I’m floating somewhere above the Jumbotron, orbiting the retired jerseys. If momentum means three new cities and zero new trainers, I’ll keep my passport in my sports bra and moonlight in a league that remembers ankles.