The league has a growing profile.
The Women’s National Basketball Association will be adding teams in 2028, 2029 and 2030. Cleveland will get the first team in 2028, Detroit gets started in 2029 and Philadelphia will get its team in five years in 2030. The WNBA is charging $250 million per franchise so $750 million will go to the present-day owners. The question that really should be asked. Are WNBA owners making a profit? That seems to be unclear. The league is not going to release individual team finances so it is only a guess if individual franchises are making or losing money. The league does get an enormous amount of publicity led by Caitlain Clark with both her play on the court and her rivalries with other players.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert said of the expansion plans. “The demand for women’s basketball has never been higher, and we are thrilled to welcome Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia to the WNBA family. 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.” Philadelphia has never had a WNBA franchise but Cleveland and Detroit did have WNBA franchises and did not succeed financially. Philadelphia had a team in the women’s American Basketball League, a WNBA rival, in 1998 and 199 but that league folded in December 1999. The Cleveland Rockers franchise was part of the WNBA’s original lineup. The team lasted six years between 1997 and 2003. Detroit got an expansion franchise in 1998 and that team lasted 11 years. In 2009, the franchise moved to Tulsa and after five years in Tulsa the franchise relocated to Dallas. The three expansion franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia owners have NBA franchises in those cities. The WNBA is growing but is it making any money?
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