Philadelphia’s journey to a WNBA team

On June 30th, the WNBA announced that a professional women’s basketball team was coming to Philadelphia. This announcement marks the first time Philadelphia will have a professional women’s sports team since 1998. 

The team, whose name is yet to be announced, will be the 18th expansion team in the league. They are expected to tip off in 2030 and will be the WNBA’s sixth new team in five years. 

The team will have the same ownership as the Philadelphia 76ers, which drew mixed reactions from fans across the city. This model has proven successful for other WNBA teams because it gives them access to resources and infrastructure already in use by the NBA. One example of this is the New York Liberty, which won its first championship in 2024, and are owned by Joe and Clara Tsai, who own the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets. Both teams will play at the new Xfinity Mobile Arena, a new addition to the sports complex in South Philly, expected to be constructed by 2031.

Despite being the sixth-most populous city in the United States, professional women’s sports teams have a limited history in Philadelphia. The first and only women’s basketball team came in 1996, through the creation of the American Basketball League. The Philadelphia Rage became one of the original eight teams, however the league declared bankruptcy just two years later. 

Even though the Rage only played for two seasons, it left an impact on Philadelphia and women’s basketball. Current head coach of the Drexel women’s basketball team, Amy Mallon, played for the Rage in 1998. The organization also produced future Olympian Dawn Staley, who is the renowned coach of the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team. 

There have been rumblings of a WNBA team coming to Philadelphia for as long as the league has discussed expansion, and fans feel this is long overdue. During the pandemic, comedian Wanada Sykes and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker attempted to launch a bid for a WNBA team, but the league rejected it to focus on its current teams. The news of this upcoming expansion comes shortly after plans to build a new basketball arena in Chinatown, which were heavily protested by Philadelphia residents. The plans were eventually scrapped in favor of the aforementioned Xfinity Mobile Arena. 

Philadelphia is known for its die-hard, passionate sports fanbases and the new WNBA team will have the city’s full support. Expanding women’s basketball is not only great for Philadelphia, it is great for the entire league, which now gets to show its stars to a much bigger audience. This team will not just be embraced, it will become a defining part of the city’s sports identity.