WNBA WILL PLANT ITS FLAG NORTH OF BORDER IN 2026
Tanenbaum spearheads Toronto-based women's basketball franchise
Toronto is getting a Women's National Basketball Association team after all.
The reported deal would have Toronto's WNBA team start playing in May 2026.
Months after plans for an expansion team long considered a slam dunk fell apart, prominent owner Larry Tanenbaum went on his own and landed a team, CBC'S Shireen Ahmed first reported on Friday morning.
The report, citing four unnamed sources “with knowledge of the deal but who are not authorized to speak about it,” said an announcement is expected on May 23 in Toronto, with the unnamed team set to take the court two years from now.
Tanenbaum, the Toronto billionaire who co-owns Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment with telecom titans Rogers and Bell, is a lifelong basketball fan. He made the initial attempt to bring an NBA team to Toronto in the early 1990s, but wasn't selected as the winning bid.
Still, he eventually linked up with the NBA when the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors merged ownership in 1998 and has gone on to become the chair of the NBA'S board of governors and the face of the Raptors ownership group.
That made Tanenbaum the obvious candidate to spearhead a WNBA bid, but reports last year said members of the MLSE board from Bell and Rogers shot down the idea, even though it had support from the other members.
Tanenbaum, 79, heads the Kilmer Group separate from his stake in MLSE and Kilmer is behind this bid.
Other reports had Tanenbaum likely being pushed out from MLSE in the coming years as part of the deal struck when Bell and Rogers bought controlling interests in MLSE from the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan in 2011 (Tanenbaum already was MLSE chair at the time and gained a bigger ownership stake in the deal).
As the popularity of professional women's sports increases (the Professional Women's Hockey League is winding down a successful first season) so does the demand for more product.
WNBA rosters are already filled to the brim with top talent and the players have been requesting expansion for a while.
Golden State was awarded the WNBA'S 13th franchise last October, while Portland and Toronto previously came close before Tanenbaum and his group finished the job here.
Sacramento also has been bandied about as a likely destination.
The WNBA, which was founded in 1996 and began play in 1997 with eight teams, will use charter flights for every trip for the first time this season, another key demand from its players and a necessary step to expand to Canada.
Toronto sold out Scotiabank Arena for a WNBA exhibition game last year, the league's first in Canada, and last week's second game in Edmonton sold more than 16,000 tickets.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in Toronto last May: “I know there's a lot of passion here, I've felt it since I've been here” and added: Toronto has “scored very well” in data analysis of potential expansion spots carried out by the league and is “very high on the list.”
Tanenbaum was seated front and centre not far from Raptors vice-chairman and president Masai Ujiri for the game.
CBC reported the expansion team will play out of Coca-cola Coliseum, which seats 8,000 and is home of the American Hockey League's Toronto Marlies. Toronto's PWHL franchise is playing its playoff games there and there's an expectation that team will make that venue its permanent home moving forward.
Mattamy Athletic Centre, formerly Maple Leaf Gardens, now seats only 2,600 for hockey.
Kingston, Ont., native Aaliyah Edwards was just drafted sixth overall by the Washington Mystics, Mississauga, Ont.'s Laeticia Amihere went seventh to the Atlanta Dream a year earlier and veterans Kia Nurse of Hamilton and Bridget Carleton of Chatham, Ont., are also in the league this season.
Basketball is already booming in this country, but there's no doubt the numbers of Canadians in the WNBA will rise significantly moving forward as the Toronto expansion team inspires many young women to pick up a basketball and chase their dreams.
While conversations about the WNBA'S growth may start with Caitlin Clark, any talk about the 2024 championship begins with the star-studded Las Vegas Aces led by A'ja Wilson and their quest to three-peat.
The Aces have been dominant on the court the past two seasons, becoming the first team to repeat as champion since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001-02.
They are +100 favourites to win it again when the league tips off its 28th season on Tuesday, according to BETMGM.
New York at +230 is the only team close to the champs.
Wilson, last season's WNBA Finals most valuable player, and the Aces are looking for a third consecutive WNBA title — a feat accomplished by only the Houston Comets, who won the first four league championships. But the buzz around the league has been centred on Clark, along with Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso and the rest of a rookie class that has been the most talked about in the past decade.
The brands the players built in college have led to sold-out jerseys and arenas. Teams have moved games to bigger venues to accommodate the demand for more tickets. It also helped get the league to finally have charter flights for road games.
For all the hype about the rookies, how they perform on the court will be key to sustaining the early focus they generated on the league.
Las Vegas is the solid favourite to win it all again, although the Liberty is expected to have something to say about that. New York returns all five starters from last season's team that lost to the Aces in the WNBA Finals.
New York's roster was compiled last season through free agency and trades, but now Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu hope to lead the franchise to its first title.
“We know what happened last year and the fact we didn't achieve our goal will motivate us, but it's not what we're thinking about the entire season,” Stewart said. “I'm really excited to get things going with a new and old group and build the chemistry. Now most of us have a year under our belt, what are we going to do bigger on and off the court?”
While Las Vegas and New York didn't have any headline-making off-season moves, Seattle and Phoenix both created some ripples with moves they hope will make them title contenders.
The Storm, who built a Us$60-million state-of-the-art practice facility, added Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-smith. The Mercury signed Natasha Cloud and Kahleah Copper to add to Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi.
WNBA rosters are already filled to the brim with top talent and the players have been requesting expansion for a while.