Cleveland is looking to the future with its new WNBA franchise.
The organization will debut in 2028 and be branded as the Cleveland Sirens, the team announced Tuesday.
“The Cleveland Sirens are sharp, unapologetic, fearless and relentless, representative of this region, our Great Lake and the future of our city and women’s basketball,” president of business operations Allison Howard said in a news release.
Instead of reviving the Cleveland Rockers, who played in the WNBA from 1997 to 2003, the team will begin this chapter with a new identity. Per Howard, the new Cleveland franchise will not absorb the history of the Rockers; they will exist as two separate statistical entities.
The Sirens will play at Rocket Arena, home of the NBA’s Cavaliers. Their performance center, a 55,000-square-foot space, is currently in use by their NBA counterparts but is being converted into a facility for the Sirens.
The Sirens will be the 16th WNBA team, the next in a rapidly expanding league. Cleveland was awarded an expansion team in June 2025, along with Detroit and Philadelphia, which will join the league in 2029 and 2030. This season, the WNBA welcomed the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, and in 2025, the Golden State Valkyries became the first expansion team since 2008.
The Sirens have been building toward their inaugural season, hiring Howard as president of business operations in August of last year. She remained in her role as executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Rock Entertainment Group and the Cleveland Cavaliers through the 2025-26 NBA season before fully transitioning into her WNBA role.
In the process of selecting a new name, a 13-month endeavor that entailed market research, surveys and thousands of conversations with the community, Howard said her team knew it had to emphasize the region’s greatest asset: Lake Erie, something other major-league teams in Ohio have yet to do. Once that guiding principle was in place, the name “bubbled” up from there, she said.
“The design of the siren, she is moving forward, she is progressive,” Howard told The Athletic. “That was also intentional because we believe the WNBA is moving forward, we believe women’s sports is moving forward, and we believe Northeast Ohio is moving forward.”
The organization teased the announcement with the phrase “Hear the Call,” a reference to the alluring voices of the mythological sirens.
“There’s definitely a part of the siren and fan of women’s sports that has been below the surface, and she and he haven’t had a voice, and now we are giving them that time to come to the surface and be heard,” Howard said.
The team’s logo highlights the motion of the Siren. The accents on the sides of the wordmark are intended to resemble reverberating sound waves, like the call of the siren.
The Sirens’ blue color palette mirrors the gradient of Lake Erie from the depths to the surface. The blue is also an homage to the color of the Rockers. The new Cleveland franchise plans to have a close connection to its past despite the new name. Former Rockers players will be at the brand launch, and there will be an alumni program.
Howard says she hopes the fans will organically create chants and songs that go along with the Sirens’ name.
Another professional women’s team has the same name: the New York Sirens of the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Howard said they had a conversation about the potential overlap, but considering the teams are in different sports and different markets and represent different entities — the New York Sirens are inspired by the blaring sound of scoring a goal — there wasn’t a concern, and she would even love to collaborate with the PWHL squad.
In the lead-up to the launch in 2028, in addition to developing the brand identity, the franchise has built out its staff and roster of partnerships, including with Cleveland Clinic. One facet of that partnership is conducting research specific to female athletes.
“We always put our community first, so with any partner that we align with, you will see that be a major tentpole of what we do in the community,” Howard said.
