WNBA expansion has arrived for the first time since 2008 as the league announces a franchise for the San Francisco Bay Area coming in 2025. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert brings music to the ears of W fans as pleas for more teams have been a theme for quite some time now. The Golden State Warriors granted this franchise with plans to share their home, the Chase Center, in San Francisco with the team slated to be headquartered in Oakland, California. This will be the first time that the area will be home to a WNBA team, and the sixth NBA team to have an extension of their franchise, so the move is monumental in more ways than one, to say the least.
An addition to the western conference could mean that this is only just the beginning of expansion talks. With 12 teams currently in the league and the addition of a Bay Area team to add to that number, the playing field will likely grow from here and shifts may be made to the current landscape. Expansion, of course, brings more exposure to the WNBA in ways that are both needed and overdue. But it can also help one of the main issues across the league: exceptional talent getting waived. Fans have witnessed heartbreak and head-scratchers after seeing some of their favorite players on the rise face brutal roster cuts. Though it's the harsh reality of the business, expansion is the only solution that makes sense to lessen these type of moves that unfortunately have to be made.
Only time, and very on-brand WNBA teasers in between, will tell what's next for the league and where another team may be landing with Portland reportedly being the second expansion city on deck after discussions have reached the Board of Governors level. But the future is looking bright and quite expansive from what we've seen so far.
