The Golden State Valkyries are set to take the court at Chase Center this year as the WNBA’s 13th team.
The Toronto Tempo and Portland team are set to take the court next season as teams 14 and 15.
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert had made it a point to reiterate how the goal was to get the W to 16 teams by 2028. With all the interest there was by suitors, it was not a matter of if the WNBA would get to that 16th team, but where would it be located.
It appears Cleveland could be about to Rock again.
Per reports – including one from Sports Business Journal – The Land is preparing to become the home of the W’s 16th franchise.
As WNBA fans know, Cleveland was once the home of the Rockers before that franchise had folded. The report suggests that the new franchise will bring back the Rockers name and will play its home games at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse – the same arena that the Cleveland Cavaliers call home.
Of course, any time there is any expansion news it has the WNBA family abuzz. And this latest news is no exception. Here are our thoughts on this report of Cleveland expansion.
250 Million Reasons
Often in business, it is the money that talks the loudest.
According to the Sports Business Journal, the Cleveland bid is shelling out a record $250 million for a franchise.
This dwarfs the $50 million that it was unveiled that Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid the WNBA’s way to bring the Valkyries to the Bay Area.
Driving up the expansion price that high is sure to set the market for any other suitors who are looking to bring the WNBA to their respective cities.
18 Teams
One other interesting tidbit from these reports suggest that the WNBA may not be finished – even after a reported Cleveland expansion.
The report from the Sports Business Journal suggested that the WNBA may decide to expand further – possibly to 18 teams.
This means that many of the suitors would still have a chance at two more expansion berths beyond the 16 the WNBA wants to ascend to by 2028.
There is one big reason as to why the WNBA would want to continue to expand – expansion fees. Especially if the W’s incumbent owners see that an ownership group is looking to pay roughly double what the Toronto and Portland groups paid.
Still Snubbing the South
When the WNBA first announced that expansion was real and no longer a fantasy, a number of fans were excited about the possibility that at least one of these teams would join the Atlanta Dream as southeastern teams.
So far, that has not been the case.
Up to this point, expansion has seen two new franchises get placed out west. It has also seen a team get placed in Canada. This new Cleveland franchise would join the Chicago Sky, Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever as franchises in the Midwest.
Conferences
Even though the WNBA may not recognize an Eastern and Western Conference to the extent that the NBA does, this still does even out conferences at eight teams apiece. This is with the caveat that the WNBA does decide to stay at 16 teams for now.
Golden State and Portland to the West and Toronto and Cleveland to the East. In leagues that emphasize East and West like the WNBA, NBA and NHL one unintended consequence of expansion is a conference imbalance. It appears that – for now – will not be the case with the WNBA.
What’s Next?
When we noticed the initial reports regarding this 16th team for Cleveland, we figured that the business of expansion for the WNBA was closed for the time being.
This was before we dove deeper into these reports and noticed that the W could be mulling the possibility of going even further – to 18 teams.
With as much interest as there is in expansion franchises, the W has gained a massive amount of leverage in terms of expansion. This also means that ownership groups looking to bring franchises to markets such as Philadelphia, Houston, Nashville, Detroit, Charlotte, Miami and Kansas City could all still be firmly in the running.
