With the WNBA’s forthcoming Bay Area expansion team now set and another likely soon for Portland, the league is considering adding even more teams. 

As the WNBA began its highly anticipated superteam Finals matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty on Sunday, commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the league has started plotting out potential scenarios for subsequent rounds of expansion. 

Last week’s announcement revealed that the Bay Area team, yet to be named, will kick off in 2025. The WNBA’s 14th team is poised to join the league in the same year, with a formal announcement expected before year-end.

But Engelbert is also looking beyond that.

“The goal is to add that 14th team, not more, for 2025,” she said. “But obviously, longer-term, I’ve said my goal is to get this league additional teams in additional cities that we think would be great. It’s a really good problem to have. We have a lot of interest, which is why we haven’t announced the 14th team yet.”

Other potential expansion candidates include Austin, Charlotte, Denver, Nashville, Philadelphia, and Toronto.

The Portland bid, however, is reported to have reached the WNBA Board of Governors. The market had the Fire between 2000-02, but the league is in a far stronger position now, and Oregon has proven itself to be a fertile market for women’s basketball. 

Inflection Points

The next round of expansion also lines up with the expiration of the WNBA’s current media rights deal with ESPN and parent company Disney. The league will be looking to use ongoing increases in key metrics such as attendance and national television viewership to secure a hefty rights fee increase well beyond that agreement’s $25 million annual value.

“Again, ’25 is an important year. But we’ve been doing a lot of work in the meantime to prepare ourselves for that, and that’s why growing the league … has been so important leading into those negotiations,” she said. 

In another sign of growth for the WNBA, celebrity sightings at Game 1 of the Finals included LeBron James, Mark Wahlberg, and Tom Brady, who is also part of the Aces ownership group. 

In yet another inflection point for the fast-growing NWSL, the league has reportedly struck a major set of media rights deals that will significantly boost its presence on network, cable, and local television and digitally. 

The league has finalized four-year agreements with ESPN, CBS, Amazon, and Scripps Sports, initially reported by Sportico, to expand its reach and exposure. These agreements’ formal completion and announcement are anticipated in the coming weeks.

The value of the deals is still unknown, but the collective deals are said to be at least 10 times larger than the $1.5 million annually the keague currently gets from CBS. The NWSL is completing these deals as women’s soccer hits a high point following the 2023 Women’s World Cup, as well as expanded viewership for the league itself, and the NWSL will be able to hit the market again after the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

The media deals also follow a growing league expansion plan that saw the recent announcement of a new franchise in Boston to join previously disclosed ones in the Bay Area and Utah.

Farewell To An Icon

In another history-making moment for the NWSL, the league drew a record crowd of 34,130 on Friday at Seattle’s Lumen Field for the last home match for OL Reign star and U.S. Women’s National team icon Megan Rapinoe. 

The match featured tributes from Ken Griffey Jr., Magic Johnson, Billie Jean King, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Abby Wambach, as well as a 30-minute ceremony after the match. Many fans wore pink wigs in Rapinoe’s honor. 

Before this summer’s WWC, the 38-year-old Rapinoe said she would retire from the game.

A long-planned new arena and mixed-use development for the Calgary Flames is now formally set after the team, the city of Calgary, and the province of Alberta completed a formal agreement on the $890 million project.

Set to break ground next year and with a projected opening of 2026 or 2027, the project will include a new arena of about 18,000 seats in downtown Calgary and a culture and entertainment district, including a public plaza, community ice rink, restaurants, retail, and residences.

The project will entail the replacement of the Flames’ current home, the Scotiabank Saddledome. This building, known for its iconic saddle-shaped roof and role in the 1988 Winter Olympics, has reached the age of 40 and no longer meets the current NHL standards. It will be demolished once the new arena is completed.

The city of Calgary will contribute $390 million toward the project, the province will chip in $240 million, and the Flames ownership Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. will pay $260 million.

Other CSEC teams will also play at the new venue, including the WHL Hitmen, AHL Wranglers, and CFL Stampeders.

The Flames will commit to the city in a 35-year lease as part of the deal.

In both financial structure and overall concept, the Flames’ project takes some influence from the team’s archrivals, the Edmonton Oilers, whose Rogers Place and ICE District now serve as a model for sports-centered urban development.

One of the backers of a Premier League club is exploring a major capital raise.

Eagle Football Holdings, which has a 40% stake in Crystal Palace, is considering raising $200 million and taking the company public, according to Bloomberg. There’s no timeline for when either could happen.

Led by American businessman John Textor, Eagle Football Holdings has a multiclub portfolio that also includes French club Lyon, Brazilian side Botafogo, NWSL club OL Reign, and Belgian side RWD Molenbeek. 

Last month, Textor was reportedly looking to raise $300 million for Lyon in order to aid various club projects in France. Earlier this year, reports had surfaced that Textor was exploring taking Lyon public via a SPAC merger at a $1.2 billion valuation, but those plans haven’t materialized.

Around The World

Soccer clubs worldwide are embracing institutional investors as the costs of operating business in professional sports continue to increase.

Chelsea just raised $500 million from investment firm Ares Management, Liverpool just sold a $200 million stake to New York-based private equity firm Dynasty Equity, and Everton was seeking a capital raise of nearly $200 million before eventually being sold to Florida-based 777 Partners for nearly $700 million.