The WNBA officially announces Toronto as the league’s 14th franchise

In an event featuring WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mayor Olivia Chow and more, Toronto formally announced its newest sport franchise.

We’ve known the news that Toronto would be the location for the next WNBA team for a while, after Shireen Ahmed of CBC broke the story two weeks ago — but today the league formally announced the expansion at a star-studded event.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, Kilmer Sports Group owner Larry Tanenbaum, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford were all on stage to announce that Toronto would be receiving the league’s 14th team. Tanenbaum — who has led the effort for expansion with Kilmer, also announced that former Toronto Raptors Vice President Teresa Resch was named President of the new team.

This is the first time the league has expanded outside of the United States, and Toronto will be the first international team in the league.

The yet to be named team will join the WNBA in 2026, and will play at Toronto’s Coca-Cola Coliseum to start. Tanenbaum and Kilmer Sports will also be personally investing $40 million dollars into a state of the art practice facility for the team.

After the main announcement, hosted by Stacey Dales and featuring speeches from Engelbert, Tanenbaum, PM Trudeau, Ford, and Chow, there was a panel. Dales got to ask questions to Engelbert, Teresa Resch, and Canadian legend and former WNBA player Tammy Sutton-Brown.

One of the biggest topics to come up was the eventual name of the franchise and team, and Resch admitted they did not have a name yet, but that they would be reaching out to the fans and community to help pick one. She expressed the desire for the name to representative of Canada, be representative of the strong women power the team will have, and also lead way to some really great branding.

We also have some opinions on the name, which you can read here >>>

Tanenbaum and Resch also revealed that while the team’s home base will be in Toronto, there are plans to play games in Vancouver and Montreal, in order to serve a wider audience of Canadians with the team.

There was also questions about whether the league’s recent announcement of the chartered flight program had anything to do with the timing of the announcement, but the Commissioner stated that both announcements were going to happen either way.

Fans can head to wnba.com/toronto to sign up for information about season tickets, become a member of the team, and to get exclusive updates.

Resch also emphasized how her experience working under Masai Ujiri for the Toronto Raptors helped her learn the skills she will now use in this role. She expressed the importance of knowing the unique needs professional athletes have when they come to Canada to play, and how she will work to make sure she is meeting those. She also mentioned that she plans on hiring a great General Manager for the team that will be a point of contact for the team to express their needs and desires.

The excitement was palpable in the room, with the announcement now formalized. While a lot of details like colours, names, jerseys, branding and more to be determined and announced at a later date, today was more about celebrating how far the WNBA and women’s basketball in Canada has come. This new chapter signifies the start of an era where young Canadians will have the opportunity to have a women’s basketball team to cheer for.

It’s a new chapter for women’s sports, Toronto sports, and the WNBA. Expansion is here, and now Canada is part of the action.