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Toronto achieves a major milestone with its first WNBA team, the league’s first outside the US
In 2026, the biggest city in Canada will welcome an expansion franchise that will join the Women’s National Basketball Association. The first Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) franchise to be given outside of the US will play in Toronto starting in 2026.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated during a press conference on Thursday that women’s basketball has a “rich history” in Canada, particularly in Toronto, the largest city in the nation.
Engelbert remarked, “We know Toronto is a basketball city.” “Time and again, it has been demonstrated that Toronto is home to devoted and passionate basketball fans.”
The news is made at a time when women’s basketball, and women’s sports in general, have become much more popular in North America. 2.45 million people watched the recent WNBA draft, setting a record when they watched US college basketball standout Caitlin Clark, taken first selection by the Indiana Fever, win the championship. The league, which began play in 1997 as a division of the men’s National Basketball Association (NBA), has likewise shown a consistent rise in total viewership.
The WNBA saw its highest attendance during a regular season in almost 20 years last year. We’re simply in such a critical phase for our league right now,” Engelbert remarked on Thursday.
“We’ve broken viewership records, sold out season tickets, improved the game, and this 14th team addition represents a particularly important turning point in the league’s continued development.”
With the Golden State Valkyries, an expansion team, scheduled to begin play in 2019, Toronto will become the WNBA’s fourteenth team. Kilmer Sports Ventures, directed by Larry Tanenbaum, is purchasing the franchise for $50 million.
In addition, Tanenbaum serves as chairman and a minority shareholder of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the massive Toronto sports conglomerate that also owns the Raptors and the Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, among other teams.
The WNBA played its first game in Canada approximately a year ago. 19,923 spectators packed Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, home of the Raptors, for a sold-out exhibition.
The 8,700-seat Coca-Cola Coliseum at Exhibition Place will host the Canadian city’s WNBA club, with the option to occasionally move up to the Scotiabank Arena. Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League play its home games at Coca-Cola Coliseum, which opened in 1921.
At the announcement conference on Thursday, Tanenbaum stated, “I know this is just the beginning of what’s to come, and we’re honored to have been selected as the first franchise outside of the United States.”
The team was established as a stand-alone business, Kilmer Sports Ventures, and it has promised to construct a practice facility. Until then, the players will train at the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport at the University of Toronto.
