{"id":899605,"date":"2026-10-30T06:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T06:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/899605\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T06:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T06:26:11","slug":"lisa-borders-helped-bring-the-wnba-to-atlanta-and-build-a-legacy-beyond-the-court-wsb-tv-channel-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/899605\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisa Borders helped bring the WNBA to Atlanta and build a legacy beyond the court \u2013 WSB-TV Channel 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA \u2014 The Atlanta Dream is celebrating 18 years, and one of the women credited with bringing the dream to the city has also helped women find their place in the spotlight. <\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Channel 2\u2019s Karyn Greer sat down exclusively with former Atlanta City Council President and WNBA President Lisa Borders to talk about the team and her family\u2019s civil rights legacy.<\/p>\n

Borders served as the 4th WNBA president a decade ago and she told Greer she is so proud to still be part of the Dream\u2019s support system. In fact, she calls all the women in the league her daughters. <\/p>\n

For Borders, the Atlanta Dream is more than a team to cheer for, its a team she helped bring to life. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t do it alone, I envisioned it, and I reached out to several friends,\u201d she said. \u201cWe called ourselves literally the Circle of Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Atlanta City Council President, Borders helped bring the WNBA to the city for the Dream\u2019s first season in 2008. <\/p>\n

She later became president of the entire league. <\/p>\n

Her commitment to expanding opportunity has a deep Atlanta root: her grandfather the Reverend William Holmes Borders was a civil rights leader and longtime pastor at Wheat Street Baptist.<\/p>\n

Holmes Borders, was a civil rights leader and longtime pastor at Wheat Street Baptist Church.<\/p>\n

Borders said supporting women\u2019s basketball is also about creating opportunities for women to compete professionally and have their talents recognized. She pointed to the WNBA\u2019s requirement that players complete four years of academics after high school before being drafted.<\/p>\n

She also weighed in on the Atlanta Dream\u2019s scheduling controversy, saying the focus should not be on assigning blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are worried about blame. That\u2019s not important at this point,\u201d Borders said. \u201cThis franchise in 18 years has some of the strongest talent and some of the strongest coaching it has ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 The Atlanta Dream is celebrating 18 years, and one of the women credited with bringing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[5786,376966,375530,376975,244773,71659,76384,7074,2741,71897,77224,376968,376967,3729,376970,5572,159138,99,376969,376971,376972,376974,376973,434,33927],"class_list":["post-899605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta_city_council","tag-atlanta_dream","tag-baptist_church","tag-baron","tag-borders","tag-channel_2","tag-dream","tag-george","tag-karen","tag-karen_greer","tag-lisa_border","tag-lisa_borders","tag-local","tag-louis_sams","tag-president","tag-reverend","tag-sports","tag-stacey_abrams","tag-uh_turner","tag-vice_mayor","tag-wheat_street","tag-william_holmes_border","tag-wnba","tag-wsbsyndication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899605","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=899605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}