WNBA Portland Parts Ways With Team President Inky Son 3 Months Into Tenure

Less than a year before they begin their inaugural season, Portland's WNBA expansion team has suffered a major setback in the run-up to its launch.

The team announced on Thursday morning that it had surpassed 10,000 season-ticket deposits. Owner Lisa Bhathal Merage said in a press release accompanying the announcement that "something truly groundbreaking is happening in Portland."

Against the backdrop of that announcement—which should be cause for celebration—the team confirmed that Inky Son, who was hired in early April as team president, is no longer with the organization. According to a source with knowledge of the plans, Clare Hamill, a recently retired 43-year Nike executive, will step in as interim president while the Bhathals search for a permanent replacement.

"During her brief but impactful tenure, Son helped lay the foundation for the franchise’s presence in Portland, shaping its early business operations and community engagement efforts," the team and Son said in a joint statement on Friday. "Son will return to New York, where she was previously based, and the organization thanks her for her leadership during this important phase and wishes her success in her next chapter."

The change is as abrupt as you'd expect the ouster of an executive with a yet-to-debut team to be. On Monday, Son made a post on LinkedIn welcoming a new hire to the team in the role of social media manager. Three days later, the franchise is now searching for her own replacement—and they're under a serious time crunch.

The WNBA team is without its top front-facing executive as it enters a crucial stretch for its launch. Last Friday, the team teased an announcement on July 15, which is presumed to be the formal announcement of their name and logo. Last week, the league filed multiple trademarks related to the Portland Fire, and multiple sources with knowledge of their plans have said that the new team will indeed return to the name Portland's now-defunct original WNBA franchise used from 2000 to 2002.

Also late next month, shortly after the WNBA's All-Star game in Indianapolis, the Bhathal family are set to host a multi-day "Epicenter of Women's Sports" event on the Nike campus in Beaverton centered around both the Portland Thorns and the new WNBA team.

Who will be representing the WNBA team onstage at the Women's Sports Innovation Summit that's a part of these festivities? That would be a responsibility that would presumably go to the president of the team. Will the Bhathals have a replacement for Son in place by then?

Can they pull off another full search in less than a month after it took them seven months to make the hire initially?

If they circle back to other finalists from their first search that they talked to before hiring Son, how attractive will the job be to qualified candidates, given how chaotic the rollout has been to this point?

How does a change at the top of the organization affect the team's still-ongoing search for a general manager? The Bhathals, with help from CAA, have been conducting interviews for that role in recent weeks, and sources familiar with the process say candidates have been left confused about the direction of the organization.

Throwing this added layer of uncertainty into the mix surely won't make filling that job any easier.

The WNBA team doesn't have much support staff. According to the team's LinkedIn page, they've hired a business operations coordinator and a social media manager. Their communications are currently being handled by an outside firm; they posted an opening last month for an in-house head of communications, but that job has not been filled yet.

Beyond getting the basic organizational structure off the ground and launching a name and brand identity, the WNBA team is falling behind in putting together the basketball team that will take the floor at Moda Center next summer.

The Toronto Tempo, the other expansion team set to debut in 2026, was announced four months before Portland's team last summer, but they've moved much quicker across the board. They had a team president, former Raptors executive Teresa Resch, in place at launch, and hired Monica Wright Rogers as general manager in February, as well as several other basketball operations staffers.

Now, the Tempo will have a head start over the Portland team in getting their front office culture in place and scouting for the expansion draft. They will, presumably, have the inside track when it comes to the pool of head coaching candidates, since they can begin that search now.

Both Toronto and Portland have a high bar to clear when it comes to the standard set for a WNBA expansion team. The Golden State Valkyries have nailed every part of their launch, from their widely acclaimed branding to their state-of-the-art practice facility in Oakland to smart hires in a GM (Ohemaa Nyanin) and head coach (Natalie Nakase). Partway through their inaugural season, they're a surprising 7-7 and currently in position for a playoff spot. They've sold out every home game thus far at Chase Center. There isn't a test they haven't passed.

Portland should be poised to follow in their footsteps. Thursday's announcement of the season-ticket milestone shows the fan support is there. But whatever the reason is for Son's sudden exit, it's another hurdle in a rollout that has already been anything but smooth, and the Bhathals are running out of time to right the ship before the team launches next spring.