WNBA Expands To Toronto Amid Soaring Global Viewership

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 The WNBA will add its first non-U.S. team in Toronto in 2026—the latest addition that will inch the league closer to its goal of having 16 teams by 2028 as it continues to see an increase in demand and interest, in large part due to young rising stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.


 The new team—which will be the league’s 14th—will be owned by Kilmer Sports Ventures, which is owned by Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of the NBA Board of Governors and chairman of the company that owns the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and other local teams.

Tanenbaum is paying $115 million for the team, according to multiple reports.

The unnamed team will play games at the Coca-Cola Coliseum at Exhibition Place, and the WNBA said it’s expected that games may be played elsewhere across Canada, as well.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a press release the league “is confident that this new team will thrive as a first-class WNBA organization and become a great source of inspiration and support for the Toronto-area community and across Canada.”

We estimate Tanenbaum to have a net worth of about $2.5 billion as of Thursday afternoon, making him the 1,368th wealthiest person in the world—including his minority stake in the Raptors’ and Leafs’ parent company. The Raptors had an estimated team value of about $4.1 billion last October, and the Maple Leafs had a value of $2.8 billion in December.

The WNBA is set to get its 13th team, the Golden State Valkyries in the Bay Area, next year. That new team was announced last October, and its team name and branding was announced earlier this month. The league is reportedly trying to get to 16 teams by 2028.

The expansion to Toronto was snagged by some NBA bitterness. For the deal to be finalized, the Board of Governors of the WNBA and NBA had to vote to approve the expansion. The vote was unanimous in the WNBA, and nearly unanimous in the NBA, though the New York Knicks—who are suing the Tanenbaum’s Toronto Raptors for allegedly conspiring to steal scouting secrets—voted against the expansion, according to ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski.


The expansion of the WNBA is coinciding with an increase of fans and viewership that many attributing to the popularity of women’s college basketball. Ahead of this season’s start, ticket sales for the league were up more than 90% compared to the previous year. The season opener for the Indiana Fever—which is the new hope of women’s college basketball star Caitlin Clark—drew an audience of 2.1 million people across ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+, marking the most-watched WNBA game since 2001. Increased viewership has continued beyond the season opener, with last weekend’s Fever vs. New York Liberty game drawing in 1.71 million viewers, ​​marking ABC’s most-viewed WNBA game, according to Sports Business Journal. The league has started to make other changes amid its bump in viewership, including announcing more teams would be able to charter planes for travel this season—as opposed to flying commercial—and playing some games in larger stadiums to account for the demand.

The name of the team. Tanenbaum said the team will take its time and get public input before announcing the new name, ESPN reported.

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