{"id":557592,"date":"2026-03-24T13:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557592\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:59:10","slug":"wnba-cleveland-team-adds-monarch-other-investors-to-cap-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557592\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Cleveland Team Adds Monarch, Other Investors to Cap Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCleveland\u2019s WNBA<\/a> expansion franchise has added 10 new investors to its cap table, the team announced Tuesday. The group of new owners includes investment firm Monarch Collective, marking its first stake in a W team.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, the WNBA awarded Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> owner Dan Gilbert<\/a> a franchise to start play in 2028. NBA ownership groups in Detroit and Philadelphia were also selected for WNBA teams that will start in 2029 and 2030, respectively. The expansion fee for all three teams was $250 million. Representatives for the Cavaliers and Monarch declined to comment on the valuation in the recent investment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other new investors in the Cleveland franchise are Liz Yee and Ted Coons, Lauren and Steve Spilman, Steve Demetriou, Michael Petras, John Morikis, Chris Hyland and A.J. Murphy.<\/p>\n

\n\tMonarch was founded<\/a> in 2023 by Kara Nortman and Jasmine Robinson\u00a0to invest in professional women\u2019s sports franchises and adjacent businesses. It initially targeted raising $100 million but upped its fund size to $250 million, as the appetite for investments in women\u2019s sports franchises exploded.<\/p>\n

\n\tMonarch\u2019s investments include stakes in three NWSL teams\u2014Angel City, Boston Legacy and San Diego Wave\u2014as well as FC Viktoria Berlin in Germany\u2019s second division. Nortman said Monarch\u2019s conversations with Rock Entertainment, the parent of the W and NBA teams, started in 2024. She highlighted the market, infrastructure and vision in the announcement on why Cleveland was the right fit for Monarch\u2019s first WNBA investment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe WNBA team will play at Rocket Arena, which also serves as the home of the Cavaliers. The W team has received more than 8,000 initial season ticket deposits. The team name and brand launch are expected this summer. Cleveland had a WNBA team previously, called the Rockers, which existed from the league\u2019s 1997 debut through 2003.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe WNBA initially intended for only a 16th team during the most recent expansion process, but the robust interest spurred the league to add three new franchises to start play between 2028 and 2030. The Golden State Valkyries debuted last year as the first expansion team since 2008 and immediately established themselves as the WNBA\u2019s most valuable<\/a> franchise. The Toronto Tempo, which paid\u00a0$50 million<\/a>, and Portland Fire ($75 million) will debut in 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2026 WNBA season is expected to start on time after the league and its union ended a protracted dispute over a new collective bargaining agreement. The new CBA<\/a> has a salary cap of $7 million in 2026, up from $1.5 million in 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\tKirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to Cleveland WNBA in the LP stake sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland\u2019s WNBA expansion franchise has added 10 new investors to its cap table, the team announced Tuesday. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,2357,215916,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-557592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","11":"tag-dan-gilbert","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}