Philadelphia Deserves a WNBA Team
The best time to bring a pro women's team to Philly was 27 years ago. The second best time is now.
Philadelphia is the best sports city in America.
There. I said it.
I apologize for being so blunt, but it’s true. Along with being the most underrated food city in the country, and a go-to destination for historical tourism, Philly is also a major hub for sports.
Perhaps overshadowed by the size of New York and the success of Boston, it often flies under the radar amongst Atlantic metropolises and receives only negative coverage. (Santa knows what he did, and he deserved the snowballs.) Nevertheless, it’s a top tier city for professional and amateur teams alike, and nowhere is this more true than on the basketball court.
Philadelphia was ranked the No. 1 Basketball City in America this year. The 76ers boast the second highest win percentage in the NBA since 2017, while ranking Top 3 in attendance since ‘18, including two seasons in first.
With 38 total basketball stadiums in the city, including U Penn’s “cathedral,” the Palestra, it’s hard to ignore Philly’s appetite for non-professional basketball, too. Big 5 college games regularly attract equal or greater buzz than Sixers’ games, and Villanova’s two national titles since 2016 further cement the Delaware Valley’s hoops renown beyond the Sixers.
It's clear that the city is ready to accommodate more than one pro team.
So why not add another?
The WNBA, founded 27 years ago, has never in its three decades of operation extended an olive branch to Philadelphia. The city claims Dawn Staley, two-time NCAA champion, three-time NCAA Coach of the Year, and six-time WNBA All-Star among its basketball royalty, yet the Philly basketball legend has no hometown team to root for in the professional women’s game.
In an association that has historically struggled for viewership, which loses $10 million annually and is buoyed financially by its partnership with the NBA, it makes no sense why the WNBA has never once attempted expansion to the fourth largest media market in the United States.
That’s not to say that Philly will magically sell out every home game for a potential franchise, but why not at least give it a try?
It’s not even like the WNBA has a lot to compete with. Philadelphia became the first city in history to lose three championship games in one year this year, as the Eagles, Union, and Phillies each came within an inch of a trophy and lost it.
Meanwhile, the Sixers couldn’t even get out of the second round again, and the Flyers, well… I’d rather not disgrace this newsletter with mention of such incompetence.
Who wouldn’t be eager to extend their perennial disappointment to a women’s franchise?
When pressed for comment, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert admitted knowledge that Philly is eager for a team. But despite her local lineage (Engelbert was born in South Jersey, educated at Lehigh, and is the daughter of a St. Joe’s player), she would not commit to the city as an expansion destination.
"Philly is definitely on a list,” she said. “Again, I said we had 100 cities on a list so I could name probably 15 where we think we've narrowed the list down to, and Philly's on that list."
Wow, the final fifteen! What an honor.
The trepidation seems at least somewhat motivated by two past failures in the City of Sisterly Love: the Philadelphia Fox, which went bankrupt in the late ‘70s, and Dawn Staley’s own Philadelphia Rage, which fell apart in the late ‘90s.
These folded franchises may seem like damning indications of Philly’s failure to support women’s basketball, but I would argue that the teams’ parent organizations are greatly at fault.
The Fox’s league shut down two years after the team did, while the Rage only shuttered their courts as the association they played in declared bankruptcy. The reason for the latter was largely attributed to the founding of the rival WNBA in 1996.
So, if the WNBA suffocated a franchise in Philly, surely it owes the city a new one.
Natasha Cloud, WNBA champion and Delaware County native, is a vocal advocate for such expansion.
“Listen, it’s in the works,” she said. “I’m trying my damndest to bring a team back to Philly.”
That was well over two years ago. I’m not holding my breath.
Until Cloud’s and my dream is realized, I will keep an emergency section of my savings dedicated to merchandise pre-orders.
Whether it’s under the guise of the Fox, the Rage, or the oft-suggested “Philadelphia Bells,” they have it on good authority that I’ll be first in line for a jersey, no matter what name or colors they wear.
When I’m home, I’ll catch a game at whichever home court they may defend. And during away days at the Los Angeles Sparks, I’ll be frothy-mouthed, blindly raging, and ready to fight Angelenos in honor of my hypothetical hometown team.
All they have to do is launch one.
Shouts out to…
Bigfoot West, L.A.’s bigfoot-themed bar, for the hangover.