WNBA expands to Portland, with team to begin play in 2026 - ESPN

Less than 11 months after WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert wrote in a letter that consideration of a Portland expansion team would be "deferred for now," the league announced Wednesday a return to the city as its 15th franchise, to begin play in the 2026 season.

Portland previously entered the WNBA as the expansion Fire in 2000 before folding after the 2002 season, when the league moved from central ownership to individual ownership of teams.

The new team will be owned and operated by RAJ Sports, led by controlling owner Lisa Bhathal Merage and her brother, Alex Bhathal. They also are the majority owners of the NWSL's Portland Thorns.

This is the first time the WNBA will return to a city it previously left, although Engelbert expressed an openness to do so again in the future.

«I don't think we ever have a bias as to whether there was a team there before or not,» Engelbert told ESPN, «but certainly I think Portland has proven they'll show up for women's sports and definitely for women's basketball, so we're excited to be coming back to the market.»

Engelbert's letter in November was addressed to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a champion of women's sports who had been working closely with the bid and hosted the commissioner at the nation's first sports bar dedicated solely to women's sports, the Sports Bra, during a site visit to Portland last year.

Wyden had described the reaction to that news, which came after he had his bag packed for an expected announcement that Portland would rejoin the WNBA in 2025 alongside the Golden State Valkyries, as «72 hours of really bitter disappointment.»

«After 72 hours, we said, 'Back on our feet, we're going to get this done,'» Wyden told ESPN. «It really was a constant building and a process