{"id":568051,"date":"2026-04-06T15:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/568051\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T15:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:18:13","slug":"the-portland-fire-gear-up-for-their-inaugural-wnba-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/568051\/","title":{"rendered":"The Portland Fire gear up for their inaugural WNBA season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"People<\/p>\n

People wait in line for shirts at the launch party for the Fire, Portland\u2019s new WNBA team, at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore., July 15, 2025. The Fire’s inaugural season is set to tip off May 9.<\/p>\n

Anna Lueck for OPB \/ OPB<\/p>\n

Typically, new WNBA teams have five to six months to acquire players and practice as a team before the season starts. The Portland Fire have only five weeks.<\/p>\n

With the WNBA expansion draft<\/a> on April 3, the Fire were finally able to start building their team roster. The draft was delayed several months due to tense contract negotiations<\/a> between the WNBA and the players\u2019 union. The season is set to tip off<\/a> May 9 at the Moda Center.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Veale is the senior vice president of communications for the Portland Fire. She joins us to talk about the draft and the team\u2019s upcoming season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink Out Loud\u00ae\u201d broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook<\/a>, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org<\/a>, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People wait in line for shirts at the launch party for the Fire, Portland\u2019s new WNBA team, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,250854,434],"class_list":["post-568051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-think-out-loud","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568051","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=568051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}