The WNBA Should Capitalize On NCAA Women’s Basketball Success And Expand

WNBA teams have begun to pare down their rosters. Each of the 12 teams can carry only 12 players.

That’s 144 total women professional basketball players. Out of all the talent we’ve seen coming out of the NCAA in the past few years, only 144 can continue playing in the WNBA.

Sunday, after the Washington Mystics waived Evina Westbrook and Alisia Jenkins, Mystics star Natasha Cloud tweeted, “We need more teams. These players deserve to be on a roster. It really kills me😔”

Calls for league expansion are nothing new. A number of cities like Portland, Oregon have pled for a team. The sheer number of outstanding players who have been cut in the past few days suggests that there would be plenty of ballers to go around for an expanded league.

The Atlanta Dream cut Alaina Coates. Coates was a second-overall draft pick in the 2017. The Connecticut Sun cut 2023 national champion LSU point guard Alexis Morris and 2020 sixth overall pick Mikiah Herbert Harrigan. The Indiana Fever waived Emily Engstler, the fourth overall pick in 2022, and the Phoenix Mercury waived Sydney Wiese, the eleventh overall pick in 2017.

Most teams still have cuts to make.

As of now, the WNBA is saying expansion won’t occur until 2025, and, even then, only one team will be added to the association. The last time the WNBA expanded was 2008.

By way of comparison, the NBA has 30 teams that can each carry 15 players. That’s 450 opportunities compared with 144 in the WNBA.

Former WNBA player, now coach of the Phoenix Mercury, Vanessa Nygaard, responded in an email, “When I played in the WNBA 20 years ago, we had 16 teams so yes I believe expansion is possible. We had teams in Sacramento, Portland, Orlando, Miami, Cleveland, Houston, Detroit and Charlotte that are not there anymore. There were great passionate fan bases in all those places that don’t get to see WNBA action live any more.

“As for the talent, more opportunity will lead to more talent development. To me it is not a question of are there enough talented players for expansion but do we have strong potential owners and fan bases who are committed to the growth of women’s sports? Being in only 12 markets really limits our visibility. Imagine if we were in 30 cities like the NBA?”

With the success of this year’s NCAA tournament which had record-breaking attendance and viewership, the WNBA has a moment to take advantage of growing national interest in women’s basketball. Fans who have watched women play in college will undoubtedly be interested in continuing to watch them play in the WNBA.

The NCAA rules change which now allows student athletes to profit from their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) means players will move into professional sports already having tens of thousands if not millions of social media followers. With expansion, the WNBA can capitalize on women’s college basketball’s popularity and the star power of some of its top players.

For example, I live in Oregon where women’s basketball has undergone a renaissance in the past decade with Oregon State University and the University of Oregon’s teams making runs to the Final Four. Both rivalry games, in Corvallis and Eugene, sold out this past season. OSU and UO have huge alumni presences in Portland who could bring their newfound interest in women’s basketball to an expansion team in Portland.

After all, Portland was home to one of the original professional American Basketball League (ABL) teams, the Portland Power. The league only lasted from 1996-1998, unable to compete with the greater financial resources the NBA provided the WNBA. Portland also had a short-lived WNBA team, the Portland Fire, founded in 2000. The city lost that team when the WNBA sold ownership of their franchises. Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen was facing his own financial woes with an underperforming Blazers team and so was unwilling to buy the Fire. The franchise folded in 2002.

Portland has clamored for another WNBA team ever since. Supposedly the city is in the running for the next slot. In fact, in February, the city hosted WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, and no less than Oregon Senator Ron Wyden made a plea for the city as the league’s next destination.

Even in a down year, Oregon State ranked 23^rd nationally in average and accumulated attendance with nearly 67,000 in total attendance and 4,300 at each game on average (This in a town of only 60,000 residents). The University of Oregon ranked 13^th, with nearly 102,000 accumulated attendance and 5,700 on average.

Oregon State head coach Scott Rueck told me through an email, “There’s no doubt due to the longstanding support and respect for women’s sports in Oregon that the city of Portland and the surrounding region would emphatically support a WNBA franchise.

“There is a great opportunity for expansion because there are so many deserving and marketable athletes who are in the prime of their career currently being forced overseas. I would love to see more opportunity created domestically and in Portland in particular.”

Nashville can make a similar argument with the successes of the nearby University of Tennessee Lady Vols, as can Philadelphia with Villanova, Temple, Penn, Saint Joseph’s, and La Salle.

The WNBA should seize the moment. There’s too much talent, too much interest in women’s basketball, and too many cities clamoring for a team to let this opportunity pass by.