TORONTO, ON- MAY 13 - as the Minnesota Lynx fall to the Chicago Sky 84-72 in a preseason WNBA in ... [+]
The WNBA is officially coming to Toronto.
For good this time.
CBC Sports reported on Friday that Toronto billionaire, Larry Tanenbaum, via the holding company Kilmer Sports Inc. has been granted an expansion franchise by the WNBA.
According to the report, an official announcement is set for May 23rd and the team is expected to begin playing in May 2026 at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, an 8,000-seat arena that is also home to Toronto’s Professional Women’s Hockey League franchise and the American Hockey League’s, Toronto Marlies.
Toronto will be the 14th WNBA team, following the recent addition of a San Francisco team which begins play next season.
Tanenbaum is currently a stakeholder in Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Raptors and Maple Leafs (among other sports entities), but has recently begun embarking on his own sports ventures with Kilmer Sports Inc., hiring both European soccer executive Ivan Gazidis and the former Vice President of Basketball Operations for the Raptors, Teresa Rech, to lead the company.
With the growth of women’s basketball in recent years, here are a few major breakthroughs in professional women’s basketball:
- The WNBA recently reported it will commit $50 million over the next two years to ensure full-time chartered flights for all of its teams, making traveling and safety a priority in the rapidly growing league.
- Shattering viewership records: The 2024 WNBA draft drew over 2.45 million viewers, making it the most-watched draft in league history. Viewership in general has skyrocketed as of late, with the 2023 season breaking records in TV viewership and social engagement.
- The WNBA sold out two exhibition games in Canada in the past two years: Selling out Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena in 2023 and selling over 16,000 tickets in Edmonton this month.
- Viewership of the WNBA in Canada has risen as of late: The 2023 opening weekend of the league saw a 325% increase in viewership across Canada as well as a year-by-year increase of over 35% worldwide.
- A Nielson Study in 2020 reported that interest in the WNBA increased by 31% with 76% of adults agreeing that women’s sports is on the rise.
All of these facts make the league’s decision to grant Toronto a team a no-brainer.
But the work has just begun. Over the next 2 years, Tanenbaum, Resch, and the entire Kilmer Group will have to build the infrastructure necessary to house a professional women’s basketball team in Toronto in time for the summer of 2026 — the same time the city is set to be one of the hosts of the FIFA World Cup.
And maybe most importantly, a name for the team.
Many have brought up the idea of bringing back the Toronto Huskies, the name of the city's very first NBA team. Some may want the women’s team to create their own identity.
Nonetheless, professional women’s basketball is headed north of the border.
This is another massive step in the right direction for the growth of the game. And a huge moment for Canadian Basketball.
