The WNBA is cashing in on its exploding popularity by expanding the league.
Two new teams will begin play in 2026, one year after Golden State debuted, and the league announced this week that owners have formally approved adding three more franchises by 2030. This means that over the course of a half-decade, the league will have gone from 12 teams to 18.
The changes aren’t going over well in some corners of the basketball media. In a fiery Friday post on X, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons called the rapid expansion “staggeringly stupid and an unapologetic money grab that will immediately make the league worse.”
“You can’t just frantically add new teams like fast food franchises the moment you have a little success,” he added. “We have 7 decades of evidence. Build slowly and smartly. This isn’t smart.”
Staggeringly stupid and an unapologetic money-grab that will immediately make the league worse. You can’t just frantically add new teams like fast food franchises the moment you have a little success. We have 7 decades of evidence. Build slowly and smartly. This isn’t smart. https://t.co/Afe2pRKPxq
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) April 10, 2026
This season, the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo will debut, followed by Cleveland in 2028, Detroit in 2029, and Philadelphia in 2030. The Golden State Valkyries likely fueled a greater appetite for expansion, given the incredible success of their inaugural season last year, as the team made the postseason, sold out every home game, and broke the WNBA’s attendance record in the process.
However, the WNBA has a checkered history with expansion. Within four years of its launch, the league had ballooned to 16 franchises, and stayed at that number from 2000-02. But by the end of the Great Recession, just 12 teams remained. That size stuck until last season, when the Valkyries arrived.
The WNBA is betting that the rise of women’s basketball overall (including at the college level) and the demonstrated appetite for live games, from exhibitions in cities like Toronto to Unrivaled’s Philadelphia games this spring, will help new teams stick better than they did in the early days of the league. Bidding from ownership groups has reportedly been highly competitive, and according to Sportico, more than one of the expansion franchises has already sold off equity to new partners at a higher valuation than the expansion fee.
Notably, Simmons recently brought up former Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca’s failed bid to relocate the Connecticut Sun in a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast. Pagliuca reached a deal with Sun ownership to purchase the team for $325 million — more than any recent expansion fee — and move it to Boston. But the WNBA intervened and instead handed the franchise to Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for $300 million, claiming that the league has jurisdiction over franchise relocations.
Could Simmons simply be irked at the process by which expansion and relocation have happened in the WNBA? Or is he truly concerned about the league’s well-being? Perhaps a mixture of the two, but you certainly don’t see Simmons get riled up about anything having to do with the WNBA very often.
The league’s rapid expansion could prove a mistake in the long run, but owners clearly want to recoup some of the cash they have put into their teams over the years. And fans are hungry for more women’s hoops.
