{"id":521404,"date":"2026-03-13T15:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521404\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T15:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:49:08","slug":"new-breed-of-expansion-teams-in-toronto-and-portland-to-challenge-the-sky-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521404\/","title":{"rendered":"New breed of expansion teams in Toronto and Portland to challenge the Sky in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sky<\/a> will face two new opponents this season: the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo. So how seriously should they take the newcomers from up north?<\/p>\n

Traditionally, expansion teams were the league\u2019s punching bags, a rite of passage the Sky know well. In their 2006 debut, they won just five games. Six losing seasons followed before the Sky finally reached the playoffs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the Sky \u2014 building a roster from scratch isn\u2019t easy. You draft players from other teams\u2019 benches. You don\u2019t get a lottery pick in the college draft.<\/p>\n

In many ways, expansion teams are built to suffer.<\/p>\n

Then the Valkyries shattered that expectation.<\/p>\n

They became the winningest expansion team in league history last season, making the playoffs and sweeping the Sky 3-0.<\/p>\n

They had everything going for them<\/a>. Deep-pocketed ownership. A one-of-a-kind fan atmosphere. A roster built from international gems and an elite coach.<\/p>\n

The looming question for the Sky is whether the Valkyries are the start of a new trend. Because the league is going to keep expanding: three more teams will join starting in 2028.<\/p>\n

Brondello is the Tempo\u2019s ace<\/p>\n

The Tempo might have the best shot at replicating the Valkyries\u2019 blueprint. They have an ace in head coach Sandy Brondello, a two-time champion with strong relationships across the league\u2019s superstar ranks. The Tempo smartly made her one of only a handful of coaches earning more than $1 million.<\/p>\n

The Tempo front office also signaled they\u2019re on top of the latest trend: building rosters around data, analytics and high-level scouting. General manager Monica Wright Rogers and assistant general manager Eli Horowitz bring experience with this from the Mercury and Sparks, respectively.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll also have a nation cheering them on. The Tempo sold out season tickets in Toronto and will play games in Montreal and Vancouver, establishing themselves as Canada\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

Fire are poaching from the best<\/p>\n

Portland\u2019s path looks more experimental. Their coach, 30-year-old Alex Sarama, was an NBA assistant and lacks Brondello\u2019s league relationships and institutional knowledge.<\/p>\n

But the organization has been poaching from the right places. Before joining the Fire, general manager Vanja \u010cernivec helped build the Valkyries roster. Her ambition is to build the best analytics department in the league, and she already plucked an analyst from the 2024 champion Liberty.<\/p>\n

The Fire may have an edge over the Tempo in facilities<\/a>. They\u2019ll play in the Moda Center, an arena roughly twice the size of the Tempo\u2019s, and will practice in a brand-new facility. The Tempo will practice at the University of Toronto this season.<\/p>\n

Sky on track?<\/p>\n

While the Fire and Tempo have plenty to prove, they\u2019re clearly a different breed of expansion team than the Sky were. Twenty years ago, Sky investors saw the team more as a civic and social justice project<\/a> than a major commercial venture. Now, they must figure out how to compete with expansion groups that can commit more than $100 million as an opening gambit.<\/p>\n

The Sky\u2019s new practice facility in Bedford Park<\/a> is part of their attempt to keep pace. The team says the project cost has risen to $60 million, though Bedford Park is covering roughly half.<\/p>\n

This season should also reveal the Sky\u2019s progress in the two other key areas: coaching and international scouting. Tyler Marsh enters his second season as head coach, and general manager Jeff Pagliocca\u2019s first international prospect<\/a>, Aj\u0161a Sivka, is expected to join the roster.<\/p>\n

Where the Sky have not yet made moves is the basketball strategy department. While the Tempo and Fire have both prioritized dedicated hires in analytics and scouting, the Sky front office remains lean. They lack support roles such as an assistant GM or data analysts, leaving the bulk of the strategic lift to the coaching staff.<\/p>\n

If Toronto or Portland prove that the Valkyries were no fluke, the Sky may need to rethink its intellectual infrastructure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sky will face two new opponents this season: the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo. So how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-521404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521404","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=521404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}