The Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (WNBA) introduced at present that it has awarded Portland, Oregon, the league’s fifteenth franchise. The Portland crew, set to start play within the 2026 season, can be owned and operated by RAJ Sports activities, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. Portland is the third enlargement franchise awarded by the WNBA throughout this spherical of enlargement, following the Golden State Valkyries and a Toronto franchise, bringing the league from 12 to fifteen groups.
“Because the WNBA builds on a season of unprecedented development, bringing a crew again to Portland is one other necessary step ahead,” mentioned WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “Portland has been an epicenter of the ladies’s sports activities motion and is residence to a passionate neighborhood of basketball followers. Pairing this vitality with the Bhathal household’s imaginative and prescient of main top-flight skilled sports activities groups will make sure that we ship a premier WNBA crew to the higher Portland space.”
