{"id":575012,"date":"2026-04-10T01:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575012\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T01:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:44:13","slug":"wnba-expansion-cleveland-detroit-philadelphia-to-join-womens-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575012\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA expansion: Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia to join women&#8217;s league"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cleveland (2028), Detroit (2029) and Philadelphia (2030) are set to have their own women&#8217;s basketball team.<\/p>\n<p>The WNBA and NBA Board of Governors <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WNBAComms\/status\/2042396086472523906?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> Thursday that the WNBA has granted expansion teams for Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>Cleveland will make its debut in 2028, followed by Detroit (2029) and Philadelphia (2030).<\/p>\n<p>The entry of three cities will extend the WNBA&#8217;s team count from 15 to 18.<\/p>\n<p>Both Cleveland and Detroit are set to rejoin the WNBA. Previously, Cleveland served as the home of the Rockers, while Detroit was represented by the three-time champion Shock.<\/p>\n<p>The three newest teams each paid a record $250 million franchise fee for expansion.<\/p>\n<p>The Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo \u2014 the two new official franchises in the WNBA \u2014 are scheduled to make their season debut in May.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/plus?utm_source=basketnews_com&amp;utm_medium=bn_plus&amp;utm_id=UA-259273-31&amp;utm_campaign=banners_free_content_for_not_members_bottom_7\" class=\"banners_paid_content_info_block_white banners-paid-content-info-block-white\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"bn-plus-img img-fluid\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bn-plus.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                            Thank you for reading us! We have even more content for you.<\/p>\n<p>                                                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                                If you like our content, please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=basketnews.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a> and add us as your preferred source. It helps us a lot, and we are committed to delivering you the very latest basketball news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland (2028), Detroit (2029) and Philadelphia (2030) are set to have their own women&#8217;s basketball team. The WNBA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-575012","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\/575012","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=575012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}