DETROIT \u2013 It\u2019s official, the WNBA is coming back to Detroit.<\/p>\n
The Women\u2019s National Basketball Association and NBA Board of Governors have approved three new expansion teams.<\/p>\n
Detroit will get its team in 2029, following Cleveland in 2028 and Philadelphia in 2030.<\/p>\n
For fans in the city, it\u2019s a full-circle moment.<\/p>\n
Former Detroit Shock supporters said they can\u2019t wait to see pro basketball back downtown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team is going to play at LCA, and that\u2019s going to help with the fanbase,\u201d said Shock suferfan Diane Nothaft. \u201cBecause playing out in Auburn Hills, I\u2019ll tell you, coming from Ann Arbor<\/a>, that was a trek coming from all of those games. I think just in general that the quality of play has improved, and I think that\u2019s going to get a lot of other people involved in the game that maybe weren\u2019t interested before.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Local 4\u2019s Karen Drew sat down with former WNBA President Donna Orender, who called bringing women\u2019s basketball back to Detroit a \u201cNo-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBasketball, especially women\u2019s basketball, was made for Detroit,\u201d said Orender. \u201cIt sounds like you have incredible leadership here from all sectors. I remember being at the Palace. It was packed inside that huge arena. They won championships in 2006 and 2008, and people showed up. Detroit is a basketball-loving city, and so it was really sad when it went away.<\/p>\n You can watch that full interview on Local 4+, where Orender talks more about basketball in the Motor City and why supporting women\u2019s sports matters.<\/p>\n Detroit Shock<\/p>\n Detroit<\/a> is eager to welcome the WNBA back, having previously hosted the Detroit Shock<\/a> from 1998 to 2009.<\/p>\n The Shock won three championships during their tenure before relocating to Tulsa and then to Arlington, becoming the Dallas Wings.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2013 It\u2019s official, the WNBA is coming back to Detroit. The Women\u2019s National Basketball Association and NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,8823,8028,132553,65609,2698,459,82,48554,630,9709],"class_list":{"0":"post-596918","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-detroit","11":"tag-detroit-pistons","12":"tag-detroit-shock","13":"tag-little-caesars-arena","14":"tag-national-basketball-association","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-wayne-county","18":"tag-wnba","19":"tag-womens-national-basketball-association"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596918","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=596918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}