Portland's Delayed WNBA Expansion Was a Blessing in Disguise

It took a year too long, but Portland found the right ownership group for its new basketball team.

📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — The gathering that took place on the court at Moda Center on Wednesday afternoon was supposed to happen 328 days ago.

Oct. 26, 2023 was the date the Trail Blazers and WNBA had on the books for a press conference announcing that Portland would be awarded the league’s 14th franchise, to start playing alongside a just-unveiled Bay Area team and be owned by ZoomInfo cofounder Kirk Brown.

Those plans falling apart at the last possible moment was a disaster and a public embarrassment for everyone involved, and the fallout led most people to assume Portland had blown its chance to get in on the WNBA’s recent wave of explosive growth, even as the most obvious fit on the planet for a city to put a women’s professional sports franchise in.

I came away from Wednesday thinking that last fall’s smoked layup was the best thing that could have happened, if the end goal was to not only put a WNBA team in Portland but give it a real chance to become the kind of local institution its NBA counterpart is.