MINNEAPOLIS — Sophie Cunningham isn’t eager to visit two of the league’s newest expansion teams when they begin play in the coming years.
“It’s a hard decision-making situation, but, man, I don’t know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or [Cleveland],” Cunningham said Tuesday morning ahead of shootaround for the Commissioner’s Cup final.
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The WNBA teams in Detroit and Cleveland on Monday morning, as well as the introduction of a third expansion team in Philadelphia. By the end of the decade, the WNBA will total 18 teams, a historic number in the burgeoning league’s 29th season. It previously played with 16 in the early 2000s, including the Detroit Shock (1998-2009) before its relocation to Tulsa and ultimately Dallas, and the Cleveland Rockers (1997-2003).
The expansion clubs’ ownership groups spoke highly on Monday of their cities’ respective passion for women’s sports and the excitement they heard from business and government leaders about the prospect of their own teams.
Detroit Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem told a story about Governor Gretchen Whitmer playing a competitive game of knockout with the Pistons and her immediate support of their bid for a WNBA team.
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“She was all in,” Tellem said on Monday. “She may be our No. 1 fan in the state. She’ll really be excited for this news, and she’ll, I’ll tell you this, she’ll be a regular working out with our team.”
Those cities backed them up on Tuesday afternoon.
The city of Detroit pushed back on Cunningham’s comments, noting the Shock ranked top five in attendance for five straight seasons, topped the charts in three and set a single-game attendance record of 22,076 fans in the playoffs. The team averaged around 9,500 fans in those years after a franchise-high of 10,229 in 1998 that ranked sixth, according to Across the Timeline.
The city of Cleveland also clapped back, sharing a video of Fever teammate Caitlin Clark speaking highly of the city while playing in the 2024 Final Four. Nic Barlage, CEO of Rock Entertainment Group and the Cavaliers, said that event was the “final catalyst to kind of go all in and go all in the way we did.” Cavs guard Donovan Mitchell also got involved, responding on X to Cunningham’s comments by sharing fire emojis highlighting Cleveland in the summertime.
NBA groups win WNBA bids
All three incoming franchises will be owned by NBA ownership groups. Cunningham, in her first year with the Indiana Fever, said she understands why that choice was made, while still questioning other options.
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“I totally get having kind of the brother team of the NBA side because it is helpful,” the seven-year veteran said. “It’s way more helpful. You just get more perks. There’s more opportunities. And so I get that aspect.
“You also want to listen to your players, too. Where do they want to play? Where are they going to get excited to play and draw fans?”
Cunningham began her career in Phoenix, where the Mercury and Sun share an ownership group. The Fever and Pacers share an ownership group as well.
The Liberty, Lynx, Mystics, Sparks and Valkyries all have the same umbrella structure. NBA and WNBA teams under the same ownership structure often share facilities, social media staffers, communication/PR crews and marketing leaders. They also host games in the larger arenas, whereas other teams in the league are limited to smaller event spaces.
Nashville, Miami, Houston lose out
The expansion news follows years of incoming bids from cities around the country, including ones in Nashville, Denver, Houston, Austin, Charlotte and Kansas City. Predators chairman and bid leader Bill Haslam called out the commonality of NBA ownership groups on Nashville not being awarded a team.
Cunningham said people wanted Miami or Nashville, a city she singled out specifically for its lucrative women’s sports base. The Missouri native also highlighted the bid by Kansas City, noting that though she is biased, it “has a great situation for a women’s sports team.”
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“Amazing opportunity,” she said. “There’s a huge arena downtown that no one’s using. And I think that the women’s soccer league that people draw.”
The NWSL’s Kansas City Current averaged 11,500 fans per game in 2024, It ranked sixth in the 14-team league and is one of seven to average five digits.
Four of the six WNBA expansion teams announced since late 2023 are in the eastern half of the U.S. It creates the natural rivalries Commissioner Cathy Engelbert craves, but also results in WNBA deserts.
“You would think that you would want to try to get more of the country engaged in the WNBA,” Cunningham said.
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Fans called out the lack of teams in the south after the announcement, and others circled Denver as a perfect connector. Houston, where the Comets became the league’s greatest dynasty out of the gate, is still high on the list, Engelbert said.
Roster expansion vs. team expansion
There was muted caution by Cunningham and other players in Minneapolis for the Commissioner’s Cup championship between the Fever and Lynx, as well as from players around the league on Tuesday. There will be an expansion draft each of the coming years through 2030, creating roster uncertainty and diluting the talent pool of teams, as well as available in-season free agents.
Players have long voiced their desires for larger rosters versus team expansion, citing player health and safety as 10-player rosters and hardship contracts are regular occurrences.
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“When teams are still playing with nine players, but there’s 18 teams, it’s a little bit challenging,” Lynx seven-year veteran Bridget Carleton said. “So I think there’s other areas that need to improve as well.”
Carleton compared the schedules of the WNBA and NBA, finding similarity in games played per week. That’s been another major talking point as the league expands its number of games within the same footprint. But, she said, the NBA has larger rosters, plus can call up G-League players.
Engelbert has repeatedly said expansion allows the WNBA to expand its footprint, thereby growing its business.
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“I talk to corporate partners, especially on the retail side, and they say, Cathy, we’re in 100 cities. You’re only in 12,” Engelbert said on Monday. “That really resonated with me. We need scale. The more cities we’re in, the more they’ll carry our merch, the more demand that will be for the merch, more fandom we build, so it was that kind of circular thing that was important to me.”
Both Cunningham and Satou Sabally, speaking to reporters in Phoenix during the mini Commissioner’s Cup break, said that in ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations, the focus is on taking care of the players actively in the league and not so much the prospect of expansion.
“How amazing is that that the league can grow, but how cool would it also be to have a little bit of expansion on rosters?” . “Let’s focus on the teams that have everything set up right now, and maybe focus on the teams also that find excuses continuously to lack investment into their players before we focus on adding more to the grain of people that can’t really be sustained.”