How do you market a sports team without any players?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an age-old question for expansion teams, and one that Kimberly Veale, SVP of marketing and communications for the WNBA\u2019s Portland Fire<\/a>, has had to answer twice in the past couple of years\u2014she joined the Fire from 2025 expansion team the Golden State Valkyries<\/a>.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s expansion teams, the Fire and Toronto Tempo, had to wait even longer than usual to fill out their rosters. While the Valkyries were able to draft their first players for the 2025 season in December of 2024, CBA negotiations dragged on<\/a> for months during the offseason this year, pushing the 2026 expansion draft to April.<\/p>\n But the Fire weren\u2019t going to wait that long to start marketing the brand.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s the brand-build piece of this that we had to navigate with the Valkyries, and then also navigate with the Fire,\u201d Veale told Marketing Brew. \u201c[Portland] was excited about who\u2019s going to be on the roster, and everything that was going on in this unique scenario was completely outside of our control. For us, it was really about establishing the brand, who we were, and who we wanted to be from a community perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n While Veale and her team waited to welcome their players, they leveraged other assets, like their jerseys and game schedule, early in the year to fuel the fandom into the spring. Now, with a full roster on the court, they\u2019re leveraging player personalities, a tried-and-true team marketing tactic, to further grow brand equity in a city that\u2019s growing into a strong women\u2019s sports hub.<\/p>\n Fan the flames<\/p>\n Unlike most expansion teams, the Fire isn\u2019t a brand-new franchise, technically speaking, as Portland had a WNBA team with the same name from 2000 to 2002. That history meant that Veale\u2019s approach to brand-building was more about \u201cintegrating ourselves back into the Portland community 24 years later,\u201d she told us, rather than starting from scratch.<\/p>\n To start generating\u2014or regenerating\u2014the hype, the team debuted<\/a> its jerseys in January. The Fire tapped its NBA counterpart, the Trail Blazers, to help promote<\/a> the jerseys, a strategy Veale said she learned from her time with the Valkyries.<\/p>\n The schedule release, a significant date<\/a> on the calendar for many leagues, served as another major content moment for the team even before it had a roster. The Fire worked with Portlandia stars Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen for a sketch to announce<\/a> its schedule to the tune of the show\u2019s theme song. Veale said she wasn\u2019t entirely sure the approach would land, given Portlandia ended in 2018, but it ultimately went over well with fans\u2014extremely well, if ticket sales are any indication.<\/p>\n Get marketing news you’ll actually want to read<\/p>\n Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hear all the stats<\/a> about thousands and thousands of season-ticket deposits, and what Portland\u2019s passion and tenure is as a notable women\u2019s sports city, but for me, in that moment, I was like, \u2018Wow, okay, check, I get this now,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Drinking from the firehose<\/p>\n Then, finally, the expansion draft was held April 3, allowing the Fire and the Tempo to each select 11 players from existing teams. It was a major moment for the entire organization, the marketing team included, Veale said.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019ve got this roster overnight,\u201d she said. \u201cWe go from zero to 11 players, and all of a sudden\u2026we have a lot of personality on the team. That is really something we\u2019re trying to capture quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Megan Gustafson, whom the Fire signed in mid-April, has a pet Corgi named Pancake who\u2019s starred in some of the team\u2019s recent<\/a> social<\/a> content<\/a>, and the Fire has been posting other personality-oriented videos like rapid-fire Q&As<\/a> and a \u201cmessage to BookTok<\/a>.\u201d The team released their brand campaign for the season, \u201cLegacy, Reignited,\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n There\u2019s also plenty of on-court content designed for the \u201cbasketball purist\u201d fans, Veale said. While that kind of die-hard fan is integral for any team, Veale said she\u2019s also focused on attracting newer, younger basketball fans who may care about more than player performance.<\/p>\n As the season heats up, she says her goal is to keep growing awareness and love for the team through events like fan fests and theme nights, in addition to social content.<\/p>\n She has high hopes that progress will already be evident come tip-off.<\/p>\n \u201cGolden State blew the doors off my expectations for that home opener,\u201d Veale said. \u201cI would venture a guess that I\u2019m also going to have that same reaction of, \u2018Wow\u2019…It\u2019s a chilling moment, in all the good ways, for what this league represents.\u201d<\/p>\n