Report: WNBA to expand with return of Cleveland Rockers in 2028

The WNBA will reportedly be reaching a total of sixteen teams upon the return of a franchise to Cleveland.

Per Tom Friend of the Sports Business Journal, the WNBA will be awarding the city of Cleveland with a team after a record bid of $250 million. There is a “90%” chance or better that this eventually goes through “with an announcement expected no later than March” of the Cleveland Rockers coming back to the association later this decade.

“The WNBA is preparing to award Cleveland its 16th franchise, multiple sources have told SBJ, with an approximate bid worth a league record $250M. The sources put Cleveland’s expansion chances as high as 90% —with an announcement expected no later than March,” wrote Friend. “Cleveland is expected to join the league for the 2028 season playing at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. They will be reprised as the Cleveland Rockers, an original WNBA franchise that folded after the 2003 season when former owner Gordon Gund could not sell the team due to tumbling revenue and erratic attendance.”

With that, the WNBA will be at sixteen teams at that point with the additions of the Golden State Valkyries, who will join in May, as well as franchises in Portland and Toronto next year. Cleveland will then be the last of those additions in three years.

However, Friend also reported that the WNBA could now look at further expansion to seventeen or eighteen teams in the near future. He named five other cities as options for those possible future franchises with Philadelphia, Houston, Nashville, Detroit, and Miami. Houston, Detroit, and Miami were the likeliest of the options as noted that they too had former franchises in the league. Nashville has also been part of those discussions in a different report last month.

This comes after more interest over the last few seasons in the WNBA. They’ve has posted improved, record ratings and attendance with newfound stars and brands in women’s basketball now at the college level and across their dozen teams.

As for this now-revived franchise, the Rockers played in Cleveland for seven seasons from 1997, as one of their original eight teams, to 2003. They went 108-112 (.491) in that span while making four appearances in the playoffs.

Now, a quarter century later, the Rockers will reportedly be back in Cleveland as the latest addition to the WNBA.