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Megan DiLeo grabs a rebound in a Portland Fire home game against the Los Angeles Sparks.<\/p>\n
I never set out to spend an afternoon looking at season tickets for the Portland Fire<\/a>, zooming in and out of views of seats in the Moda Center. But that\u2019s what happened on a recent Tuesday, as I found myself comparing options, swiveling angles, eyeing the cost. The cost! I wanted to spend how much on what now?<\/p>\n Prior to this spring, I had little discernible relationship with professional basketball. As a child in Seattle, I\u2019d been to a Sonics game, and my dad tells me it was a thriller, with Sam Perkins scoring at the buzzer to nab a one-point win over the Utah Jazz. I can only pretend to remember. I somewhat recall tubing at Snoqualmie Pass one winter and the hill being abuzz because Gary Payton and Detlef Schrempf were there, too. After my family moved to Portland, when the Moda Center was young and known as the Rose Garden, my high school dance team performed before a Trail Blazers<\/a> game, getting our turns caught on the grippy court as fans found their seats. I didn\u2019t stay for the game; I wouldn\u2019t see the Blazers play until spring 2022, when Damian Lillard was injured, the team was wrapping up a dismal season, and 100-level tickets could be had for relative pennies. Portland lost. The arena was half-empty. The vibes, needless to say, underwhelmed.<\/p>\n I paid even less attention to women\u2019s basketball. When the WNBA, which launched in 1997, arrived in Portland in 2000<\/a>, I was in middle school and barely clocked the Fire\u2019s debut. While those early games pulled a respectable crowd\u2014typically more than 8,000 fans, just under the league average at the time\u2014curtains would still be dropped over the Rose Garden\u2019s 300 level, with blow-up balls placed in empty seats to create the illusion of fullness. In a roundtable conversation<\/a> earlier this year, former Fire center Sylvia Crawley recounted how the players\u2019 per diem was so meager that the only place they could afford to eat was the food court at the Lloyd Center. Before televised games, then\u2013head coach Linda Hargrove would give players stacks of tickets to give away at the mall. \u201cPeople were acting like I was handing out perfume samples,\u201d Crawley said. \u201cThey were like, \u2018No thanks, no thanks.\u2019\u201d The Fire folded after three seasons.<\/p>\n Things look very different in 2026. The WNBA commands more attention than ever, and in early May the rekindled Fire played their season-opening game to 19,335 fans at the Moda Center. I joined my friend Megan, a season ticket-holder, at the following matchup, and my first Fire game became the team\u2019s first victory<\/a>, won in spectacular fashion with a buzzer-beating putback layup by Sarah Ashlee Barker that had her falling onto her back and me hugging the stranger next to me. Had there been hugs at that Sonics buzzer-beater in the \u201990s? Here, confetti fell from the rafters and players handed out roses to jubilant fans. The celebration spilled into the soft spring night. \u201cLet\u2019s go, Fire!\u201d I heard in the distance as I pedaled away from the arena.<\/p>\n I felt a measure of disbelief sitting in the stands. I needed earplugs at each game. Was I really in an arena filled with people, of all ages and genders, cheering for women?<\/p>\n It was a storybook start to the season. Ten games in, the Fire had notched six wins, an impressive record for an expansion team that most observers had expected little from. In press conferences, players spoke about the collective determination and growing trust they felt with teammates and throughout the organization, and about the enormous support they felt from fans. After a decisive (and nationally televised) win over the Indiana Fever on a Sunday afternoon at the end of May, Emily Engstler, a forward in her fifth year in the league who quickly established herself as the starting lineup\u2019s Swiss Army knife, said she felt<\/a> a sense of intensity and grit on this new team. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m at the park, but like a lot more\u2014\u201d she paused, searching. Her right hand, etched with tattoos, hovered over the table like a ready spider. She turned to her teammates, Carla Leite, a 22-year-old firecracker guard from France with a big curly ponytail, and Megan DiLeo, a veteran post player with a long black ponytail who was then still known as Megan Gustafson (she got married in July). Engstler snapped her fingers, crisply, several times. \u201cWhat\u2019s that word?\u201d she asked. Leite and DiLeo looked on, entertained but helpless. Engstler sighed, then bolted upright. Her double French braids stayed taut. \u201cDisciplined!\u201d she said. Leite giggled; DiLeo shrugged delightedly.<\/p>\n \u201cLike, you know, a gritty ballpark group of girls but with a lot more discipline,\u201d continued Engstler, who has a raspy voice. She recounted a moment in the game, when, as she was guarding Fever player Aaliyah Boston coming up the court, she felt a gust of wind from behind\u2014it was Leite, with the steal. \u201cI think that\u2019s something you can\u2019t teach,\u201d she said. Later in the press conference, DiLeo, who was fresh off her first start of the season and had just scored 22 points, with a perfect 8 for 8 from the field, described the team as \u201ca bunch of overlooked players.\u201d Left unprotected by their former teams, they\u2019d been picked up in the expansion draft and had arrived in Portland with chips on their shoulders\u2014and then found themselves given respect. As she spoke, DiLeo began to cry. Engstler gently urged her on. As I sat in the press room, tears sprang to my eyes, too.<\/p>\n As players marveled at their experiences, I felt a measure of disbelief sitting in the stands. I needed earplugs at each game. Was I really in an arena filled with people, of all ages and genders, cheering for women? At first, I startled to see men in jerseys bearing women\u2019s names. Early in the season, I rode past sports bar Jackie\u2019s and saw a burly, bearded, tatted-up guy in a Luisa Geisels\u00f6der jersey and gasped. At that win over the Fever, I watched a barrel-chested man in a Leite jersey twirl a towel over his head and holler in excitement, beer sloshing in his cup. Alongside them were every flavor of Portland adult, plus teenagers and kids and toddlers and, gosh darn it, adorable babies in noise-canceling earmuffs. I knew that women\u2019s professional sports had been drawing big crowds for years\u2014the Thorns, for instance, for 14 seasons and counting. But now I was witnessing it night after night, and I underestimated how moved I would be.<\/p>\n Emily Engstler drives to the basket against Raven Johnson of the Indiana Fever.<\/p>\n Soon, I was following the WNBA like it was my job. I\u2019d already spent the leadup to the season following contract negotiations between the players\u2019 union and the league for a story I was editing, an essay by Lola Milholland<\/a> about Portland\u2019s thriving recreational basketball scene for women, trans, and nonbinary players. The negotiations, protracted and contentious, resulted in massive gains for the athletes. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, average salaries have shot from $100,000 to $600,000, changing the financial calculus for players accustomed to competing in overseas leagues in the offseason to supplement their WNBA paychecks. Players also negotiated for comprehensive revenue sharing, a norm in professional men\u2019s sports but still a novelty in women\u2019s leagues, giving them a cut of the money brought in from media deals, ticket and merch sales, and so on\u2014an important move as the WNBA booms in popularity. The CBA also included lump-sum payments to nearly 300 retired players (maybe even some who\u2019d cashed their per diem at the Lloyd Center).<\/p>\n Sports are filled with stories, and this season\u2014even as chaos actors and trolls tried to hijack the league<\/a> for their own culture-war purposes\u2014has overflowed with good ones. There\u2019s Olivia Miles, the Afro-sporting rookie point guard for the Minnesota Lynx, nicknamed the Spectacle for her outrageous combination of talent, flair, and sports goggles. Her scoring is efficient, her savvy footwork and shrewd pacing can make her look like a dancer, and her ridiculous passes\u2014no-look, behind-the-back, through-the-legs\u2014have made everyone on her team better. Fans show up in wigs and costume glasses. At the Minnesota State Fair, there was an entire wall of crop art dedicated to Miles<\/a>, admiring portraits built from lentils and beans.<\/p>\n The Fire have drawn the fourth-biggest crowds in the WNBA this season, with more than 14,000 people on average pouring into the Moda Center for each game.<\/p>\n Or another rookie, Sydney Taylor, an undrafted guard who was playing in Poland until being scooped up by the Chicago Sky. In August, she made two game-winning three-pointers in the span of three weeks, securing victories for her team over the Las Vegas Aces and the Golden State Valkyries, two of the best teams in the league. For a stretch, I couldn\u2019t stop watching replays of the shot at the Valkyries game<\/a>, as much for Taylor\u2019s easeful athleticism as for the response of veteran teammate Natasha Cloud, who ran over to Taylor and scooped her into the air, gazing up in awe and celebration. The support! Tears sprang to my eyes, again.<\/p>\n At Fire games, I looked for these moments. I watched players leap for joy after landing tough shots. I watched them tug each other up off the ground. Engstler and fellow forward Frieda B\u00fchner, a fair-haired 22-year-old rookie from Germany who loves science fiction and has proven a threat off the bench, began giving each other quick hugs during substitutions. When asked about it, Engstler said it was her idea. \u201cI kind of have a lot of emotion, a lot of passion,\u201d she said<\/a>, \u201cand I asked her if we could hug when we step each other out because it kind of grounds me back in.\u201d On social media, I watched Fire players, who all lived in the same building this season, make brunch together, learn TikTok dances<\/a>, and cuddle with Engstler\u2019s kitten, Enzo<\/a>. DiLeo\u2019s corgi, Pancake<\/a>, became a local celebrity in her own right. Karlie Samuelson documented her search for the\u00a0Wildwood crows. Engstler got tattoos from local artists. It seemed like all of them, at some point, shared photos of roses.<\/p>\n The Fire form a pregame huddle at an early-season game against the Connecticut Sun.<\/p>\n In time, losses accumulated for the Fire, as observers had expected they would. I began to understand what I\u2019d heard about sports being a microcosm for life. After a win, I buzzed. Sloppiness\u2014and turnovers have been a challenge for the Fire\u2014left me peeved. In late July, injury struck: Barker, who\u2019d made that buzzer-beating shot to secure the Fire\u2019s first victory (and who is, like DiLeo and Engstler, a player who\u2019s gone from the bench to the starting lineup), suffered a season-ending ACL tear. Though the team struggled without her, they didn\u2019t give up. Late-game comebacks remained a penchant\u2014in mid-August, the Fire nearly fought back from a 29-point deficit against the league-leading Minnesota Lynx\u2014and play became better-paced and more fluid. As the regular season comes to a close, the Fire sit in ninth place, one spot shy of a playoff seed, with 16 wins and 27 losses: a respectable record, especially for a first-year expansion team.<\/p>\n The fan experience, meanwhile, has remained a blast. The Fire have drawn the fourth-biggest crowds in the WNBA this season, with more than 14,000 people on average pouring into the Moda Center for each home game. I\u2019ve been at nearly all of them. In late August, a mascot arrived, a sparkly pink dragon named Rose. The team had been teasing the reveal all week, planting scorch marks and glitter at spots across town. I arrived well before tipoff and told a security guard I was looking for the\u2014I wasn\u2019t sure what to call it. \u201cSmoldering glitter pit?\u201d he offered. Inside the arena, it was a sea of spangles and sequins and tinsel wigs. \u201cThis feels like a Beyonc\u00e9 concert,\u201d I heard a fan say behind me as I roamed the concourse.<\/p>\n Several weeks later, I drove to Hillsboro, where the Fire players were in their first week at a brand-new training facility, a 100,000-square-foot complex they share with the Portland Thorns (both teams are owned by investment firm Raj Sports). All season long, the Fire had bounced from the event-packed Moda Center to Portland State University to the Nike campus, practicing wherever they could. Now they had landed\u2014with only four more games to play. But the mood in the gym was hopeful and light. The WNBA had just resumed after a two-week pause for the FIBA Women\u2019s Basketball World Cup in Berlin, and everyone\u2014team members, coaches, practice players, staff\u2014seemed glad to be reunited. At the end of practice, B\u00fchner, who\u2019d competed for Germany at the World Cup, was asked how it felt to return to Portland. \u201cI was so excited to come back, honestly,\u201d she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh my god, I\u2019m gonna see everyone again.\u2019 I\u2019m really happy here. I feel really comfortable here.\u201d<\/p>\n DiLeo, who played in the World Cup for third-place Spain (she was granted citizenship in 2023), said the new facility felt like \u201ca breath of fresh air.\u201d Players now had their own lockers, their own spaces. \u201cI feel more at peace than I have this entire season,\u201d she said. She was looking forward to getting to know Thorns players, too\u2014both teams had been in the cafeteria that morning. Jordan Harrison, an undersize rookie guard who went unselected in the 2026 draft and worked her way this season from a developmental to a standard contract with the Fire, was especially stoked on the cold tub. \u201cMy knees need all the cold,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Another cause for excitement: One of the standout players at the World Cup, a Spanish 20-year-old named Iyana Mart\u00edn, is coming to Portland next year. When the little-known point guard was drafted in the spring, fans scratched their heads, especially when it was announced that Mart\u00edn wouldn\u2019t suit up till next season. Fire general manager Vanja \u010cernivec urged patience. Based on Mart\u00edn\u2019s performance in Berlin<\/a>\u2014fearlessly cutting her way to the basket, patiently setting up her teammates to score, and sinking off-balance three-pointers\u2014the wait seems likely to have been worth it. She won the tournament\u2019s Rising Star award and was named to the All-Star Five. \u201cThe Portland Fire front office has to be ecstatic about Mart\u00edn,\u201d said commentator Brendan Glasheen during Spain\u2019s bronze-medal-game win over Germany.<\/p>\n For most games this season, I had media credentials, which meant gaping at passing players in the unglamorous bowels of the Moda Center, sitting courtside as they warmed up, and being spoiled by midcourt views from the press box. I stayed for postgame press conferences, one of which was also joined by Pancake the corgi. It was very cool. And yet\u2014in the press box, decorum reigns. There\u2019s no cheering, no groaning, no twirling a towel over your head. It\u2019s a strangely sedate pocket of the arena, and as the season went on, I grew a little tired of muffling my reactions. Games are filled with drama, and I wanted to eat popcorn and gab with seatmates.<\/p>\n As I looked at season tickets on that recent Tuesday afternoon, I texted Megan, the friend who\u2019d brought me to my first Fire game. I was feeling iffy, hesitant. She offered to split a seat with me, and I leapt\u2014while the views in 212 might not be what they are in the press box, the vibes rock. We\u2019ll each get tickets to half the games, and we\u2019ll pick out a few to attend together. I can\u2019t wait to hug some more strangers.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Portland-fire-womens-basketball_GettyImages-2278344925_pnhd2x.jpg\"\/)
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