WNBA skips Denver, picks west coast location for expansion
Oct 5, 2023, 1:46 PM
Denver did not get a new pro sports team on Thursday, as the WNBA announced expansion but did not pick the Mile High City.
League commissioner Cathy Engelbert spoke from Northern California as a franchise was awarded to the Bay Area and the Golden State Warriors ownership group led by Joe Lacob.
Denver was on the short list of cities for league expansion but was skipped this time around with the new team slated to play in the 2025 season. And there are reports that team 14 is soon coming and will be awarded to Portland.
9News reported Wednesday that the WNBA has not been in contact with the ownership group attached to Denver’s bid since a site visit in August and that the league did not want the new team playing at DU’s Magness Arena, which was the current front-running option.
It’s hard for Denver to compete with the prestige of Lacob’s Warriors, who ranked first in Forbes’ most recent NBA valuations at $7 billion. That number is bolstered by the success of the brand new Chase Center in San Francisco—which also is a great built location for the WNBA to play. Plus Lacob already invested heavily in women’s basketball and was an owner in a defunct women’s league.
The WNBA’s media partners’ deals expire in 2025, which is why that year makes sense as a date when things will change for the growing league. The WNBA like Denver and Colorado, is growing fast. TV viewership was up 49% in the 2021 regular season over the 2020 slate, according to a story released last year in the Washington Post. The Centennial State has had the Colorado Xplosion, Colorado Chill and others but none have struck around. The WNBA itself tried to expand at various points but the league wasn’t as healthy as it is now.
The mass talent in the WNBA coupled with only being in a few markets gives them a good platform to expand off of. What did Denver’s in is obvious, there was no slam dunk ready-to-go facility or a known ownership group with NBA ties.
Another big WNBA date will come when the collective bargaining agreement expires in 2027, so maybe Denver will set get a team on the court by the end of this decade.
***
