As the WNBA continues to grow, one of its upcoming expansion teams just received its new name. After previously selecting Portland as its next city, the league confirmed the new team would be called the Portland Fire.
Portland previously had a WNBA team, also named the Fire, from 2000 to 2002. The league confirmed the revival of the Portland Fire with a one-minute hype video on social media.
Like most of the defunct WNBA organizations, the Fire were discontinued due to a lack of general interest. However, over two decades later, the league believes the team will receive substantially more support due to the growing success of women's basketball.
The Fire will return in 2026, along with another WNBA expansion team, the Toronto Tempo. Their simultaneous arrivals will grow the league to 15 teams. However, the league will not stop there, as three more teams will arrive in the following seasons. League commissioner Cathy Engelbert confirmed a team in Cleveland will debut in 2028, followed by one in Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030.
The immediate success of the Golden State Valkyries in 2025 is a significant factor in the league's rapid expansion. The Valkyries were welcomed by the San Francisco community with open arms, selling out the 18,000-seat Chase Center in each of their first four home games. Golden State also sold 10,000 season tickets in its inaugural season, becoming the first WNBA expansion team to achieve this milestone.
The Fire were initially announced as a 2000 expansion team and played their games at the Moda Center, then known as the Rose Garden. While they shared the same home as the Portland Trail Blazers, which was also a new organization at the time, they barely generated any fan traction. As such, they lasted just three seasons before getting shut down.
Former Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, better known as the co-founder of Microsoft, owned the first iteration of the Fire. They improved their record each season, but could never achieve a better than 16-16 record and missed the playoffs each year. Although it is unreasonable to expect an expansion team to succeed immediately, Allen bailed on the team due to its negative financial impact.
The 2026 Fire team will be owned by Raj Sports, the same group that owns the Portland Thorns of the NWSL. While the Allen family still owns the Trail Blazers, Jody Allen — Paul's younger sister — is not financially invested in the second attempt at bringing the WNBA to Oregon.
