The WNBA made a major announcement on Monday that three new expansion franchises would be joining the league in the coming years: Cleveland in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030. That trio will bring the league to 18 teams, surpassing the previous high of 16 teams from 2000-02.
“The demand for women’s basketball has never been higher, and we are thrilled to welcome Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia to the WNBA family,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “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.
“We are excited for what these cities will bring to the league — and are confident that these new teams will reshape the landscape of women’s basketball.”
As the dust settles from the WNBA’s stunning announcement, here are seven big questions about expansion and the league’s future.
1. Is it too much, too soon?
The WNBA started exploring expansion years ago, early in Engelbert’s tenure as commissioner, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons knocked the league off track. By 2022, Engelbert and the league had raised $75 million in capital, and expansion talks soon began again in earnest.
In 2023, the league announced the Golden State Valkyries, the first expansion franchise since the Atlanta Dream in 2008. The Valkyries began play this season and have been a major success, both on and off the court. More announcements followed in 2024: the Toronto Tempo and still-to-be-named Portland team, which will take the court in 2026 and bring the league to 15 teams. Throughout this process, Engelbert has been steadfast on growing the league to 16 teams by 2028, which will happen when Cleveland joins that year.
While there was limited interest from ownership groups early in the 2020s, that all changed as the WNBA exploded in popularity thanks to Caitlin Clark and a star-studded 2024 rookie class. All of a sudden, bids for the 16th franchise were pouring in from across the country. Instead of turning all but one of them away, the league decided to push the boundaries and jump to 18 teams.
On the one hand, it’s hard to fault the league. Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia will all pay record-setting $250 million expansion fees — five times what Joe Lacob paid as an expansion fee for the Valkyries just two years ago. How is the league supposed to pass up $750 million? “Take the money and figure everything else out later” is an understandable mindset.
On the other hand, it’s fair to wonder if this is all coming too fast, too soon. Before any of these teams were announced, Engelbert spoke repeatedly about not wanting to rush expansion. Now, suddenly, the league readjusted its expansion target on the fly and added two extra teams no one was expecting. And before all but one of the initial expansion teams has taken the court.
The last time the league rapidly expanded like this was in its first years of existence. After starting with eight teams in 1997, it grew to 10 teams in 1998, 12 teams in 1999 and 16 teams in 2000. The 16-team era lasted just three seasons before contraction started. By 2010, the league was back down to 12 teams, which is where it remained until this season.
The league is in a much better place now than it was in the early 2000s, and it’s far too early to start talking about teams folding. But even if that’s unlikely to happen, there are going to be severe growing pains from adding this many teams in such a short amount of time. Already, we’re seeing issues in Portland. The franchise recently fired its president and still does not have a general manager, or even a team name, with less than a year to go until tip-off.
We still don’t know how jumping to 15 teams will affect the league’s on-court product in the 2026 season, when the talent will be diluted. That issue will be amplified by 2030 with three more teams in the mix. Throughout the majority of its existence, the league’s limited number of teams, roster spots and games has created an extremely competitive environment. Rosters are stacked, few teams are truly irrelevant each season and the vast majority of games matter in some shape or form. In a few years, that will no longer be the case, at least not to the same extent. How will all of the key stakeholders — players, owners, fans and television partners — react?
The prudent path would have been to see what sort of impact the 14th and 15th teams made next season, and react accordingly. Instead, the league decided to strike while the iron was hot, and will now have to live with the risks that brings.
2. How will consecutive expansion drafts work?
Expansion teams mean expansion drafts. Once rare, they are going to become an annual part of the league calendar in the coming years. Here’s a look at the expansion draft schedule, including Golden State’s which was already completed:
- 2024: Golden state expansion draft
- 2025: Toronto and Portland dual expansion draft
- 2027: Cleveland expansion draft
- 2028: Detroit expansion draft
- 2029: Philadelphia expansion draft
Five expansion drafts in six years is, frankly, outrageous. These are significant events that require extensive work to prepare for, and alter the course of each individual organization as well as the league as a whole. Now, teams are going to have to go through the process year after year. That will require tremendous foresight and strong communication with players.
This year’s upcoming dual expansion draft for the Toronto and Portland franchises will be particularly fascinating. Which team will get the first pick? Will they alternate picks or will it be a snake format? How many players will the other 13 teams be able to protect? How will the fact that the vast majority of players are hitting free agency in 2026 impact everything?
Looking further down the line, how will additional teams (and possibly additional roster spots) impact future expansion drafts? It’s going to be very difficult for the league to have uniformity across all of these drafts, which could create some unintended consequences.
3. Conference realignment and/or playoff format changes?
The WNBA has had an Eastern Conference and Western Conference since its inception, but they have largely been irrelevant since the adoption of a new playoff format in 2016. Since that season, the top eight teams in the league have made the playoffs, regardless of conference affiliation.
That change made sense in a league where eight of the 12 teams made the playoffs, and has been an overwhelming success. No team can skate through the playoffs because one conference is weaker, and the Finals have pitted the best against the best. Since the change, the Finals have gone the distance four times and there have only been two sweeps.
As new teams continue to arrive, the first order of business will be conference realignment.
The Valkyries were placed in the Western Conference, and are expected to be joined by Portland next season, while Toronto is expected to join the Eastern Conference. That would leave the West with eight teams and the East with seven, but the imbalance — which already exists — will not be an issue because of the current playoff format.
But what will happen when Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia join? Those are traditional Eastern Conference teams, and it doesn’t make sense to have 10 teams in the East and eight in the West. Would a current East team be moved to the West in 2030? Geographically, the Chicago Sky are the westernmost team in the East, and would be the only logical choice.
More importantly, what will happen with the playoff format?
Will the number of playoff teams increase? There was no increase this year with the addition of a 13th team, but it’s easy to imagine a world where the number of playoff teams grows after expansion. If they do raise the number of playoff teams, when would that happen? When they get to 16 teams in 2028? Or would they wait until all 18 have arrived in 2030? Those are significant questions with some stacked draft classes on the horizon.
Furthermore, will the league continue to use this current system where conferences are irrelevant for playoff berths and seeding? Or would they return to a more traditional playoff format that crowns an Eastern Conference champion and Western Conference champion and has them meet in the Finals? In that future, conference realignment would become an extremely important topic.
4. A new schedule?
Last year, Engelbert announced two big changes to the schedule: the regular season would expand from 40 games to 44 games — the most allowed under the current collective bargaining agreement — and the Finals would expand from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven.
The early reaction from the players has not been positive. Phoenix Mercury star Satou Sabally said it was “not really responsible” of Engelbert to increase the amount of games. New York Liberty guard Natasha Cloud said that Engelbert “needs to extend the season,” and added, “if you want the best product on the floor, we need proper time to rest and recover.”
Let’s compare 2023 to 2025, two seasons in which there were no major international competitions that forced the league to adjust. In 2023, the season was 152 days long. The maximum length of the 2025 season would be 156 days. Each team is playing four more games in a season that may only be four days longer. Naturally, that means fewer days off and less rest.
Satou Sabally’s critique of WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert raises big questions about future scheduling
Jack Maloney
The Valkyries’ arrival was one of the main reasons the league expanded the regular season to 44 games in 2025. It stands to reason, then, that that league will want to play even more games as the number of teams increases. If the season remains at 44 games by 2030, when there are 18 teams, each team would have only have 10 other games to schedule after satisfying a home-and-home with the other 17 opponents. That would mean fewer rivalry games and fewer chances for fans to see the top stars.
There are major obstacles to playing more games, however.
First and foremost, the players would have to agree to increase the maximum number of allowable games in the new collective bargaining agreement, which is expected to be in place for the 2026 season. Beyond that, the players and the league would have to be willing to adjust the current May to October timeline. As things stand, there is not enough time to play more than 44 games, especially during Olympic years.
Whether either will happen remains to be seen. It’s easy to see the players agreeing to more games if the timeline was expanded, but that is no guarantee. For one, many players play in other leagues during the offseason. The majority of the leagues overseas run from October to April, give or take a few weeks, while Unrivaled, the upstart 3-on-3 league co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, goes from January to March. In addition, numerous WNBA teams share arenas with NBA teams. Add in NHL and college basketball games and dates fill up fast outside of the summer. And that’s to say nothing about TV slots.
It is, at once, difficult to imagine the WNBA moving beyond the May to October timeline it has used for so long and the WNBA still playing 44 games with 18 teams in 2030. Something will have to give.
5. What about the CBA talks?
Last year, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association announced that it would opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA will run through the end of the 2025 season, and a new one is expected to be in place for the 2026 season.
“We are ready to lead transformational change — change that goes beyond women’s sports and sets a precedent for something greater,” WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike said in October. “Opting out isn’t just about bigger paychecks — it’s about claiming our rightful share of the business we’ve built, improving working conditions, and securing a future where the success we create benefits today’s players and the generations to come. We’re not just asking for a CBA that reflects our value; we’re demanding it, because we’ve earned it.”
How will the league’s decision to expand to 18 teams impact the labor talks? In Engelbert’s perfect world, not at all. She told reporters on Monday that she had previously indicated to WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson that it was possible they would move beyond 16 teams with their latest expansion push.
“We didn’t want CBA negotiations to impact something that we’ve been working on for many years” Engelbert said. “When you’re a sports league, you need scale. … I talk to corporate partners, especially on the retail side, that say, ‘Hey, we’re in 100 cities and you’re only in 12.’ That resonated with me. The more cities we’re in, the more they will carry our merch, more demand there will be for it and [more] fandom we build.”
Even if the league had signaled to the players that an additional two expansion teams was a possibility, it’s hard to imagine how that would have no impact on the CBA negotiations. Recent comments from Sabally seem to indicate that the players aren’t thrilled by the recent news.
“In the union we got a proposal from the league which was honestly a slap in the face,” Sabally said on Tuesday. “I think we really have to put an emphasis on the players in our league right now. I love to see the league growing, adding these teams in Philly, Detroit, like how amazing that the league can grow, but how cool would it also be to have expansion on the rosters.”
Sabally also asked for a focus on the teams that have everything set up right now and called out “the teams that find excuses continuously to lack investment into their players.”
6. Team names: a return to tradition or a new era?
Though not as important as some of the other questions regarding expansion, it will be interesting to see what these expansion teams are called, as well as what color schemes and logos they adopt.
There have been WNBA teams in Cleveland and Detroit before. The Rockers played in Cleveland from 1997 until 2003, when they folded due to financial issues. The Shock played in Detroit from 1998 until 2009 before being relocated to Tulsa, and later to Dallas.
Both the Cleveland and Detroit ownership groups said they would look at reclaiming their old names, but will also consider new options. For Detroit, in particular, it will be interesting to see if the team reclaims it’s previous franchise history, which includes three championships, or if that will remain with the Wings.
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It would be cool to see the Rockers and the Shock return, but it would also be understandable if these new ownership groups want to start fresh.
As for Philadelphia, that is an entirely new set up, and the “naming process will include input from the Philadelphia fanbase and basketball communities,” the team announced.
7. Could there be further expansion?
Finally, it’s worth wondering if the WNBA is done expanding.
In the short term, the answer is yes. The league’s initial goal was 16 teams by 2028. Now, it will have 18 by 2030. Over the next few years, the league will want to see how things go, both on and off the court, before making any decisions about additional teams.
Long-term, though, it would not be a surprise to see the WNBA grow to 20-plus teams. Nearly a dozen cities submitted bids for this most recent round of expansion. St. Louis, Kansas City, Austin, Texas, Nashville, Houston, Miami, Denver and Charlotte were among those not chosen. It’s unlikely the interest from those cities will subside.
On Monday, Engelbert singled out one of those cities: Houston, the former home of the Comets. It’s easy to infer from her comments that Houston would be next in line for future expansion.
“There are a variety of cities that obviously bid, and one of those I wanted to shout out, because they have such a strong history in this league and their great ownership group, is Houston,” Engelbert said. “The Houston Comets were just an amazing one, the first four inaugural championships in the WNBA. So I would say that’s the one, obviously, we have our eye on. (Owner) Tilman (Feritta) has been a great supporter of the WNBA, and we’ll stay tuned on that.”