Sources: Bhathal Family Lands Portland WNBA Expansion Team

The family, which owns the NWSL's Portland Thorns, will announce on Sept. 18 that women's professional basketball is returning to Portland in 2026.

Alex Bhathal (left) and Lisa Bhathal Merage at the press conference announcing their purchase of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns.

(Update, Sept. 7: The public announcement has been moved to Sept. 18 from the initial planned date of Sept. 10, according to a source.)

The second time looks to be the charm for the effort to bring women’s professional basketball back to Portland.

After a previously planned WNBA expansion team fell through just before the finish line last fall, Portland is closing in on finally landing a team that will begin playing in 2026, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the plans. The Bhathal family, owners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns, will lead the ownership group for the new team, sources say.

An official announcement from the Bhathals and the WNBA is expected on Sept. 18, sources say. It is unknown at this point whether they plan to revive Portland’s previous short-lived WNBA franchise, the Fire, which folded in 2002, or go with a different name.

Last fall, Portland was set to get an expansion team that would begin playing in 2025 and be owned by ZoomInfo cofounder Kirk Brown. It was close enough to official that a date was set last October for a press conference to announce it. Brown’s group bailed on the effort at the last minute, and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert publicly blamed the Trail Blazers’ planned renovations to the Moda Center for the plans falling apart, reasoning she later walked back.

The months after the WNBA’s original plans to add a team in Portland fell through coincided with the Bhathals finalizing plans to buy the Thorns from Merritt Paulson for $63 million. That sale closed in January of this year and since then, Lisa Bhathal Merage and her brother, Alex Bhathal, have been running day-to-day operations for the Thorns. Their father, Raj, is the principal co-owner of the Sacramento Kings and serves as majority owner Vivek Ranadive’s alternate on the NBA’s board of governors.

Since buying the Thorns, the Bhathals have familiarized themselves with the Portland market and fanbase, particularly its strong support for women’s sports. For several months, they’ve been seriously exploring the idea of making a bid to revive the WNBA expansion efforts. They appear on the verge of making that a reality.

Alex Bhathal declined to comment when reached by direct message on Friday. A WNBA spokesperson said: “The WNBA remains in active discussions with potential ownership groups across various markets, and the approval of any new expansion teams will be subject to a board vote.”

Another group headed by the private equity firm Monarch Collective, with investments from celebrities with local ties including Damian Lillard, had also been working on a bid for a Portland WNBA expansion team. But sources involved in the process say the Bhathals had a significant edge from the beginning due to their pre-existing relationship with the NBA, which spans over 10 years that they’ve been part of the Kings’ ownership group. The league has already fully vetted their finances, which would expedite the approval process significantly compared to the other group, and prevent any last-minute snags like what happened with Brown’s group last fall.

The imminent addition of a Portland team comes as part of an ambitious expansion plan for the WNBA amid the recent explosion of mainstream popularity for women’s basketball at both the college and pro levels. The league is planning to expand from 12 teams to 16 by 2028. The 13th franchise, the Golden State Valkyries (playing in San Francisco and owned by the Warriors), was announced last fall and will play their first season in 2025. A still-unnamed Toronto team was announced in May that will start in 2026 along with Portland.

When the Portland team is officially announced, that will make it 15, with one more city still left to be decided. In recent months, Engelbert has named Philadelphia, Denver, Nashville and Miami among the cities that are in the running.

When they bought the Thorns, the Bhathals pledged to build them a dedicated practice facility. Those plans are still in the works with a location still to be finalized, and sources say the eventual new building could also house the practice facility for the WNBA team under the same roof.

Long-term, Portland’s new WNBA team will play their home games at the Moda Center, but they may play a couple of seasons at Veterans Memorial Coliseum while the Blazers finish up a planned renovation project in the next few years, the timing of which is still to be determined.