The WNBA will play a pre-season game in Toronto in May — a giant first step towards possible expansion and the first time the league has ever played in Canada.
A pre-season game between the Minnesota Lynx and Chicago Sky on May 13 at the Scotiabank Arena will serve as the first test for the viability of a Canadian expansion team, the league has announced.
“This is a way to assess the popularity of the sport in Canada,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a conference call with reporters.
“We’re certainly excited to see how the market responds and certainly the fans in the country from a viewership perspective as well.”
The WNBA has announced plans to expand but not a full timeline or even an exact number of cities.
Now working under an eight-year collective bargaining agreement that lasts until 2028, the business side of the game is settled which provides the stability needed to expand with certainty for any new owners.
And that’s the issue that clouds what many see as a logical Toronto bid.
There are a handful of American cities – the Bay area of California among them – that also want a team. Engelbert said the original list of potential new cities was about 100 but it’s been culled considerably.
“A league of our size and scope … we’re gonna expand at the right time,” she said. ”Toronto’s certainly one of the names on the narrowed list.”
Playing at the Scotiabank Arena is significant, as is working with MLSE on promoting the game. The league is looking for continued growth in ticket sales and scope; playing in large arenas is a big step.
“I know this market is hugely into women’s sports, too,” Engelbert said. “I think playing at Scotiabank Arena is a really important part of this … to get that equality message out there, too, that we can draw at an arena like that.”
Chatham’s Bridget Carleton is expected with the Lynx in the coming WNBA season and Natalie Achonwa of Guelph is also on the Minnesota roster, though she’s announced that she’s pregnant and her playing status is clouded. Canada’s other WNBA player, Hamilton’s Kia Nurse, is currently an unrestricted free agent and won’t have a new team until next month.
But the game itself, and how the WNBA is accepted by the ticket-buying and business interests in Canada, is as important as who is playing in the game.
“It’s definitely part of how we want to see this game grow,” Engelbert said.
The timing of expansion is also unclear. Given the logistics of a bidding process, awarding teams to cities and giving them a chance to put in place a basketball operations department as well as marketing, ticket-selling and sponsorship deals would suggest any new teams wouldn’t likely play until the 2025 season.
The Sky-Lynx game is the second attempt at having a pre-season game in Toronto.
The WNBA was days away from announcing a game for the summer of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports. That game was to feature the Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury but was cancelled even before an official announcement could be made.
“We’re three years behind what my plan was,” Engelbert said.
The Toronto game will be the first the WNBA has ever played in Canada and the third the league has staged outside the United States. There were games in Mexico in 2004 and Great Britain in 2011.
Ticket information and the game time are still to be announced although the WNBA did say the game will be broadcast by both Sportsnet and TSN.
