Toronto awarded WNBA expansion team to begin play in 2026

Ladies’s skilled basketball is coming to Toronto. 

CBC Sports activities has discovered that Kilmer Sports activities Inc., headed by Toronto billionaire Larry Tanenbaum, has been granted an enlargement franchise with the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation.

An announcement is anticipated Could 23 in Toronto, with the group to start play in Could 2026, based on 4 individuals with data of the deal however who will not be approved to discuss it.

The WNBA didn’t verify the Toronto transfer.

“We proceed to interact in productive conversations with possession teams in quite a lot of markets and the granting of any enlargement groups requires a vote of the WNBA and NBA board of governors,” the league mentioned.

Tanenbaum is a minority proprietor and chairman of sporting large Maple Leafs Sports activities and Leisure which owns the Maple Leafs, Raptors, TFC, Argos and Marlies.

The 79-year-old initially pursued the enlargement group via MLSE, however it was turned down by different members of the board. 

The WNBA not too long ago expanded to 13 groups with San Francisco-based Golden State to start play subsequent 12 months, and commissioner Cathy Engelbert mentioned in April Toronto was among the many cities being thought of because the 14th group.

In a press release, Courtney Glen, vice chairman of public affairs and communications for the Kilmer Group, mentioned the group has “no replace right now.”

A WNBA spokesperson mentioned: “We proceed to interact in productive conversations with possession teams in quite a lot of markets however don’t have any information to report right now.”

WATCH | What a Toronto WNBA group means for the town, gamers and followers:

Toronto is getting a WNBA group. What it means for the town, gamers and followers

Ladies’s skilled basketball is coming to Toronto in Could 2026. CBC Sports activities has discovered that Kilmer Sports activities Inc., headed by Toronto billionaire Larry Tanenbaum, has been granted an enlargement franchise with the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation.

Mayor Olivia Chow mentioned in a tv interview on Friday she was conscious there was motion on Toronto getting a girls’s basketball group.

“Watch for it. Hopefully, there will likely be one thing afterward,” mentioned Chow in an interview with native information channel CP24. “Basketball, it is simply nice and having position fashions, it is time.

“Hopefully, there will likely be excellent news quickly and I can not anticipate that to occur.”

A supply mentioned the group would play at Coca-Cola Coliseum, an 8,000-seat enviornment at Toronto’s Exhibition Place which is residence to the Marlies and the place Toronto’s Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League franchise is at present taking part in its first playoff sequence.

Skilled girls’s sports activities has been on the rise in Canada with the formation of the PWHL that has two different Canadian franchises in Ottawa and Montreal, in addition to a brand new girls’s soccer league that’s anticipated to start play in 2025. 

A 12 months in the past, Toronto’s Scotiabank Enviornment bought out for the WNBA’s first pre-season sport in Canada and on Saturday, greater than 16,000 tickets have been bought for a sport in Edmonton’s Rogers Place.

The league not too long ago held its novice draft, with NCAA star Caitlin Clark going first total to the Indiana Fever.

Kilmer Sports activities Inc. is a brand new arm of Tanenbaum’s Kilmer Group, and it has employed former European soccer govt Ivan Gazidis to guide the brand new group. Teresa Resch can be a part of the brand new group after leaving her job with the Raptors as vice chairman of basketball operations.

WATCH | How sports activities followers are reacting to potential Toronto WNBA enlargement group:

How sports activities followers are reacting to Toronto’s WNBA enlargement group

CBC Sports activities has discovered that Kilmer Sports activities Inc., headed by Toronto billionaire Larry Tanenbaum, has been granted an enlargement franchise with the WNBA. The official announcement is about for Could 23 and the group is anticipated to start taking part in in 2026. Ali Chiasson spoke to excited Torontonians outdoors Scotiabank Enviornment.