{"id":279231,"date":"2025-11-08T11:57:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/279231\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T11:57:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:57:56","slug":"eminem-part-of-detroits-wnba-expansion-group-led-by-tom-gores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/279231\/","title":{"rendered":"Eminem Part of Detroit’s WNBA Expansion Group Led by Tom Gores"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRapper Eminem<\/a> is part of the effort to bring a WNBA<\/a> expansion team to Detroit, according to someone familiar with the process, joining a bid group that includes some of the city\u2019s most prominent sports owners, executives and athletes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Detroit native is part of a group that has been led by Tom Gores<\/a> and the Detroit Pistons<\/a>, said the person, who was granted anonymity because the details are private. Others in the group include owners of the Red Wings, Tigers and Lions, marking a city-wide effort to bring a women\u2019s basketball team back to Michigan\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe WNBA is in the middle of expansion talks, originally expected to select one city, that many now expect could cover three new teams. That\u2019s on top of new franchises in San Francisco, Toronto and Portland that are joining the league in the coming seasons. Owners for all three of those new teams\u2014and many of the bidders in this current round\u2014are backed by NBA owners.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s unclear what the Detroit group has offered to pay, but many other groups are discussing expansion fees\u2014cash, not costs committed to the teams\u2014well into the nine figures, sources said. Reps for Eminem and the Pistons didn\u2019t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWNBA team owners hold about 42%<\/a> of the league\u2014that\u2019s separate from the equity also held by the NBA or a consortium of investors in a 2022 capital raise<\/a>. Expansion will only dilute the 42% held by league owners, Sportico reported earlier this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tBids for this ongoing round of expansion were due at the end of January, and the process drew interest from groups both inside the NBA and beyond. More than 10 cities submitted formal bids in advance of the deadline, The Athletic reported<\/a> in early February, including groups in Austin, Charlotte, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Nashville and Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Detroit WNBA franchise would play at Little Caesars Arena, the $863 million home of the Pistons<\/a> and Red Wings. The potential ownership group includes Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp, Red Wings\/Tigers owner Denise Ilitch and Arn Tellem, a longtime sports agent who is now a Pistons executive. The group also includes former NBA players Grant Hill<\/a> and Chris Webber, Lions quarterback Jared Goff, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, sports investor Roger Ehrenberg and Steve Jbara, the founder of the G League team in Grand Rapids.<\/p>\n

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\n\tDetroit had a WNBA team from the late 1990s through 2009, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently told the Pistons\u2019 website<\/a> that Detroit \u201cneeds to get a WNBA team again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI actually think it\u2019s really just a question of when the Shock comes back,\u201d he said. \u201cOver time, there\u2019s\u00a0going to be a lot of expansion in the WNBA. That\u2019s a first-class group led by Tom [Gores].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, grew up in Detroit, and his ties to the city have become a large part of his celebrity. That includes his fandom of local teams. He has been a prominent figure these past few seasons at Lions games, for example.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWNBA valuations have jumped dramatically in recent years. The average franchise is now worth about $96 million, according to Sportico\u2019s most recent numbers<\/a>, led by the Las Vegas Aces at $140 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rapper Eminem is part of the effort to bring a WNBA expansion team to Detroit, according to someone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[4576,31780,95270,99,147997,434],"class_list":["post-279231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-eminem","tag-grant-hill","tag-sports","tag-tom-gores","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}