The WNBA’s two newest teams are squaring off, as Toronto hosts Portland for the first time in Saturday’s Fire vs Tempo fight for 2026 expansion side dominance.
The youth-fueled Fire enters the game on a 2-3 record, while the Tempo sits 3-3 behind veteran guards Brittney Sykes and Marina Mabrey.
And both squads are hunting redemption. Minnesota routed Toronto 100-72 yesterday, while Portland shakes off Wednesday’s 90-73 loss to Indiana.
However, the Fire looks a little different after Thursday’s abrupt roster shakeup.
Portland waived Haley Jones, Sug Sutton, and Kamiah Smalls, while activating developmental players Holly Winterburn, Frieda Bühner, and Slovenia international Teja Oblak.
“This is really all part of the process,” Fire head coach Alex Sarama said. “First real stretch of adversity we’ve faced as a group together.”
Where to Watch Fire vs Tempo WNBA Expansion Team Clash
Toronto faces Portland on Saturday at 6 PM ET, live on WNBA League Pass.
The Toronto Tempo secured the first win in franchise history on Wednesday night, defeating the Seattle Storm 86-73.
Led by a 26-point performance from Marina Mabrey, the 2026 WNBA expansion side earned the victory before a sold-out crowd at Coca-Cola Coliseum.
Mabrey served as the primary catalyst for the Toronto offense. The veteran guard connected on six 3-pointers, hitting critical shots during a decisive second-half run.
Her perimeter work allowed the Tempo to pull away, after entering halftime trailing by a single point.
Marina Mabrey’s Season-High 3-Point Tally Key to Tempo Win
The game shifted in the third quarter, as Mabrey ignited an 18-6 scoring surge. She finished the night 6-of-11 from beyond the arc, marking a season-high. Her ability to stretch the floor neutralized the Seattle Storm defense, creating driving lanes for her teammates.
However, it helped that Seattle struggled to maintain pace in the final period.
The Storm offense went cold, recording just one field goal in the final six minutes of play. While Dominique Malonga led Seattle with 21 points, the team couldn't overcome the 15 turnovers that led to 19 Toronto points.
Where to Watch Toronto Tempo vs. LA Sparks in WNBA Friday
The win establishes Toronto as a competitive force in the Eastern Conference during its inaugural WNBA campaign.
The Tempo is now 1-1, facing off against the LA Sparks on Friday night at 10 PM ET, live on ION.
The Portland Fire made a historic return to the Rose City on Saturday, shattering records at the Moda Center. A sellout crowd of 19,335 fans packed the Lloyd District arena for the Fire’s 2026 regular-season opener against the Chicago Sky, officially setting the all-time WNBA attendance record for a WNBA expansion team debut.
The massive turnout eclipsed the previous expansion milestone of 18,064 set by the Golden State Valkyries in 2025, proving that the appetite for women's basketball in the Pacific Northwest is at an all-time high. Despite a final score of 98-83 in favor of the Sky, the community rallied to support the league's newest franchise, reinforcing Portland's reputation as a premier market for professional women's sports.
Carla Leite Scores First Basket in Portland Fire History During Record-Setting Opener
On the court, the Fire, which boasts the second-youngest roster in the WNBA, showed early flashes of their potential. French point guard Carla Leite, the Fire's second selection in the WNBA expansion draft, scored the first basket in franchise history with a layup just over a minute into the game. While Portland trailed 50-37 at the half, they opened the third quarter with a persistent 12-2 run. The surge was capped by back-to-back 3-pointers from Bridget Carleton, the Fire’s first overall pick in the expansion draft.
WNBA Expansion Strategy: Why Portland’s Attendance is the New Standard
The WNBA expansion team's historic attendance milestone is also a women's sports homecoming for the city, which previously hosted a team under the same name from 2000 to 2002. Today’s Fire, owned by the Bhathal family, are part of a deep-rooted culture of support that already sees the Portland Thorns leading the NWSL in attendance. By filling nearly 20,000 seats in their first game back, the Fire have set a tall benchmark for future franchises.
Two new WNBA teams are hitting the court, as 2026 expansion sides Toronto and Portland open their preseason campaigns tonight.
The squads are looking to both shape identities and cull training camp lineups into final rosters, as the Tempo hosts Connecticut and the Fire visits Seattle just nine days before regular-season tipoff.
“When you put a team together, you just want to make sure the puzzle fits,” said Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello. “Figuring out how they all work together — every year it gets harder and harder.”
Toronto has taken an aggressive market approach, signing Marina Mabrey and Brittney Sykes to big contracts while picking up Nyara Sabally, Julie Allemande, and 2026 NCAA champion Kiki Rice via expansion and college drafts.
Portland's roster appears more unfinished, expected to lean on premier signings Bridget Carleton and Megan Gustafson to lead the young, hungry group.
“It’s going to take time, and it’s going to be messy at the beginning,” Fire head coach Alex Sarama said. “[But] it’s going to allow us to get to a point which we will never be able to get to if we’re just playing scripted, rigid basketball.”
How to Watch Toronto Tempo & Portland Fire in WNBA Preseason
The Tempo tips off against the Sun at 7 PM ET, before the Fire faces the Storm at 10 PM ET, live on WNBA League Pass.
The WNBA is looking abroad, with Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announcing the league’s interest in staging international WNBA games as women’s basketball booms worldwide.
“We’re heavily looking at that,” Engelbert said of moving either preseason or regular-season matchups overseas. “Next year we expect that we’ll do something outside of North America as a true global game.”
The WNBA has set preseason games outside the US, but hasn’t leaned into the practice as aggressively as other leagues like the NFL and NBA.
Detroit and San Antonio met for a 2004 preseason matchup in Monterrey, Mexico, before Atlanta took on Team GB in Manchester, England in 2011. Later, Minnesota and Chicago first tested the Canadian waters with a 2023 preseason game.
In 2025, Atlanta Dream and Seattle Storm played the WNBA's first regular-season international game in Vancouver, setting the stage for 2026 expansion team Toronto’s debut.
"It was an incredible crowd tonight," then-Seattle guard Skylar Diggins said after the Storm's 80-78 victory up North.
"First time in Vancouver, they showed a lot of love. We just love coming out here, playing in front of this electric [crowd]. I know it was a Dream home game, but it felt like a Storm home game. We really leaned on them tonight to help us lock in that victory."
The WNBA expansion draft is here, as the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo begin building out their inaugural rosters ahead of their 2026 franchise debuts.
The Fire won the coin toss and will pick first in Friday's two-round draft. Each expansion team can make up to six selections from a designated pool of unprotected current players sourced from the WNBA's existing franchises.
Only Chicago's roster remains off limits. The Sky secured immunity after trading away its 2026 second-round college picks in exchange for protection from the expansion draft.
How the 2026 WNBA Expansion Draft Works
The WNBA expansion draft follows strict parameters designed to protect existing teams while giving the new franchises a competitive edge. Each of the league's 13 teams submitted roster lists covering every player they hold rights to, including active, suspended, draft list/reserved, cored and retired athletes.
Teams can then protect up to five players from those lists, as long as they remain under active contracts, hold reserved rights, or enter restricted or core-able free agency. All other players are subsequently available for expansion team selection.
Once Portland or Toronto selects an unprotected player in the first round, neither expansion franchise can draft another player from that team until the second round. This rule prevents any one team from immediately losing multiple players.
No existing team can lose more than two unprotected players total, with each expansion team allowed to draft only one unrestricted free agent throughout the process.
The expansion draft represents just the first roster construction step for both incoming franchises. After today, the Fire and Tempo will participate in free agency before the 2026 WNBA Draft kicks off on April 13th.
How to Watch Portland and Toronto in the WNBA Expansion Draft
The Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo will tip off the 2026 expansion draft Friday at 3:30 PM ET, with live coverage on ESPN.
Just over a month before tipoff, the Toronto Tempo announced that former Raptors president Masai Ujiri has joined the 2026 WNBA expansion team's ownership group as a principal owner.
Ujiri led Toronto's NBA franchise to its only championship in 2019 before departing last summer to focus on his basketball nonprofit, Giants of Africa.
"I believe deeply in the vision behind the Tempo: creating female leaders, elevating women not just on the court, but across the organization, and building championship culture from day one," Ujiri said in a team statement.
As part of his duties with Toronto Tempo, Ujiri will spearhead Tempo Rising, a global coaching mentorship program designed to support emerging women-identifying and non-binary coaches. The initiative aims to shape the future of basketball by developing coaching talent in communities worldwide.
The announcement comes as the 2026 expansion franchise prepares for its inaugural season. Toronto joins the league alongside the Portland Fire as the WNBA's 15th team.
Ujiri joins an ownership group that already includes other notable figures from the sports and entertainment world. YouTube creator and actress Lilly Singh became a minority owner in May 2025, before Quebec sports icons Geoff Molson and France Margaret Bélanger invested last September.
The franchise hired Monica Wright Rogers as general manager in February 2025. In January 2026, the team subsequently added Ciara Carl and Brian Lankton as assistant coaches.
The Tempo tips off its debut WNBA season this May inside Toronto's Scotiabank Arena.
The new WNBA CBA is almost over the finish line after both the players and the league's Board of Governors voted nearly unanimously to ratify the contract this week.
As details continue to emerge, ESPN reported that players will receive about 20% of the previous year's gross revenue via salaries and other benefits, resolving the deal's biggest wedge issue.
Minimum salaries will start at $270,000 based on years of service, with a max contract coming in at $1.19 million, and average rookie salaries reaching $386,000 for first-round draft picks — up from the roughly $75,000 that players like Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Dallas Wings star Paige Bueckers banked in their rookie seasons.
The seven-year agreement also open up the possibility of a longer WNBA season, with the option to wrap play as late as November 21st in 2027 and — in order to allot for the LA Olympics — November 30th in 2028.
With the league's expansion plan targeting 18 teams by 2028, the 2027 season will likely span 50 games — up from 44 this year — with the potential to grow to 52 by 2029.
The CBA also includes upgrades to staffing and training facility standards, parental leave and protections, and merchandise licensing.
The WNBA CBA now moves to its final stage, with lawyers from the league and the players union set to officially sign off on the terms.
Cleveland is already stacking its WNBA roster, as the upcoming expansion team added women’s sports-focused investment firm Monarch Collective alongside business leaders with Ohio ties to its growing ownership group on Tuesday.
Monarch Collective, whose portfolio already includes the NWSL's Angel City, Boston Legacy, and San Diego Wave, chose Cleveland as its first-ever strategic WNBA investment — and its first foray into backing basketball in general.
Joining the firm in as fellow minority owners in the WNBA's 16th team are Liz Yee, Ted Coons, Steve and Lauren Spilman, Steve Demetriou, Michael Petras, John Morikis, Chris Hyland, and AJ Murphy.
"Our commitment to Ohio runs deep, and this strategic investment – along with partners who share our fervor for women's sports in this region – marks a powerful next step for our franchise," said Rock Entertainment group chairman and majority owner Dan Gilbert in Tuesday's press release.
Fans are already clamoring to catch the new team in action, with the franchise already securing more than 8,000 initial season ticket deposits ahead of its planned 2028 season debut — nearly 25 years after the folding of the city's original WNBA squad, the Cleveland Rockers.
"We believe in the present and future of women's sports," added Gilbert. "The ownership group we have assembled will help propel this franchise forward and support its mission to become a force for good in our community and across the sport."
How to buy WNBA Cleveland season tickets
WNBA fans looking for season tickets when Cleveland begins playing in 2028 can place an initial $28 deposit — which includes a time-stamped spot on the seat selection list — via the franchise's official ticketing partner, SeatGeek.
Unrivaled made a historic splash on Friday, setting a new pro women's basketball regular-season attendance record as 21,490 fans packed the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia for the 3×3 league's first-ever tour stop.
"It was unbelievable. You could feel the love tonight," said Unrivaled co-founder Napheesa Collier about the record-breaking crowd. "It's just a testament to what we're building here, how much people believe in it."
Friday's Unrivaled tally — which also shattered a venue record for the highest attendance of any event — blew through women's basketball's prior record, set in the 2024 WNBA season when a 20,711-strong crowd watched the Indiana Fever top the Washington Mystics inside DC's Capital One Arena.
The reward for Friday's crowd was a larger-than-life performance, as Lunar Owls guard Marina Mabrey dropped a league-record 47 points — complete with 10 three-pointers — in Friday's 85-75 win over Rose BC.
"I think the city is ready for women's professional sports," Philadelphia product and Rose BC guard Kahleah Copper said following the doubleheader, with the City of Brotherly Love gearing up to launch a WNBA expansion team in 2030. "I'm excited that one, it's here, and two, that I'm a part of it."
Last week's success in Philly has Unrivaled already eyeing more tour stops for the offseason league's 2027 season, with this year's action finishing up on the venture's 3x3 home court in Miami.
"We're going to continue to make the sports world proud by the product we put out," Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell told reporters.