There’s a Philadelphia WNBA expansion bid, but no one’s saying who’s involved

Speaking at the WNBA draft, Collingswood-born commissioner Cathy Engelbert name-dropped her "hometown" first on a list of cities the league has talked with.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks to the media in a news conference at Monday's draft.Read moreAdam Hunger / AP

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published April 15, 2024, 8:34 p.m. ET

NEW YORK — A Philadelphia WNBA expansion bid is very much in the running, commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Monday night at the league’s draft.

Speaking a few minutes before Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, and South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso were the headline-seizing top picks, Engelbert name-dropped her “hometown” first on a list of cities the league has talked with.

“We continue to engage with cities like Philadelphia and Toronto, and Portland and Denver, and Nashville and South Florida,” said Engelbert, a Collingswood native. “And I’m probably forgetting one, but those are the cities we’re talking to. I mean, just last week we got two calls from two other cities.”

The 12-team WNBA will expand next year to San Francisco, with a team owned by the NBA’s Golden State Warriors that will play at their glitzy waterfront arena. Engelbert said “our plan and goal is to get to 16 teams in the next few years.”

She later added that “[20]26 is definitely our goal for certainly the next one, and then shortly thereafter — if not then, the year or two after. So by ‘28, I’d say I feel pretty confident we’ll be at 16 teams.”

A representative from the Philadelphia bid previously reached out to The Inquirer to confirm interest, but it was unclear until Monday whether the league would acknowledge the formal talks.

The bid group has repeatedly refused invitations from The Inquirer — and multiple other outlets, this reporter has heard — to state publicly who is involved with it.

Philadelphia has long been floated as a city the WNBA should be in, regardless of whether anyone with enough money has actually been interested in spending it on a team. It’s been nearly two years since The Athletic reported that actor and comedian Wanda Sykes was involved in an effort, but it’s not known if she still is.

The bid also can’t just be as simple as offering an arena for a team to play in.

“You need an arena and practice facility and player housing, and all the things,” Engelbert said, a reference to the growing number of teams that have their own practice facilities. “You need committed long-term ownership groups.”

Asked by The Inquirer who’s involved with the Philadelphia bid and what the league wants to see from it, Engelbert declined to answer.

“We’re a pretty good vault here at the WNBA,” Engelbert said. “I’m not going to comment on any specific ownership group. We’ve had several ownership groups in several cities reach out to us — sometimes in a city, two different ownership groups reach out.”

She also said at another point: “These can either take a very long time to negotiate, or can happen pretty quickly if you find the right ownership group with the right arena situation.”

But she dropped a few crumbs along the way, and they sounded like they’d fallen off a soft pretzel.

In addressing the big-data demographic studies that the league does on expansion candidates, Engelbert admitted that Philadelphia “is my hometown, so I happen to know more about that.”

“No specific comment on that specific city, other than it’s certainly on the list,” she said. “I think it’s a great basketball city, and we’ll continue to discuss it with ownership groups there that are interested in committing long-term to the W.”