By Angelica Medina
May 7 (Reuters) – The WNBA’s 30th season tips off on Friday with expansion teams in Toronto and Portland, a new collective bargaining agreement in place and a title race led by the New York Liberty, defending champion Las Vegas Aces and Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever.
The Liberty are favourites for the title after adding forward Satou Sabally to a core of leading players including Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones.
The Aces, however, remain the standard after winning their third title in four seasons with last season’s MVP, A’ja Wilson, the league’s dominant two-way force.
Alongside Wilson, they have Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray, giving coach Becky Hammon a group of experienced players as their leading rivals work through new combinations.
The Fever, meanwhile, have moved into the contender class with Clark, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell.
Clark’s arrival transformed them into a national draw, and a healthy season from the guard could make Indiana genuine title contenders. Boston’s interior presence and Mitchell’s scoring give the team more than a one-player identity.
The Minnesota Lynx, Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury are among teams positioned to test the top tier.
The Lynx’s hopes are again tied to Napheesa Collier, one of the league’s most complete two-way players, while the Dream offer intrigue behind All-Star-level wings Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard.
The Mercury, last season’s runner-up, enter with championship experience after reaching the Finals before falling to the Aces.
Expansion drive comes amid wider growth
The league’s expansion to 15 teams means that each club will play a 44-game regular season schedule.
The Toronto Tempo will make their debut against the Washington Mystics on Friday. The Portland Fire, returning one of the WNBA’s original markets to the league, will open on Saturday against the Chicago Sky.
The Golden State franchise, who debuted last year, bring the total number of new teams to three across two seasons.
The expansion push comes alongside a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement running from 2026 through 2032, removing the labor uncertainty that hovered over the offseason and giving the league a more stable platform as interest in women’s basketball grows.
Beyond the WNBA, the broader women’s basketball market is also more crowded.
Unrivalled, the 3-on-3 offseason league co-founded by Stewart and Collier, and Athletes Unlimited, a 5-on-5 league launched in 2022, have given players more domestic earning and playing opportunities outside the WNBA season.
Those leagues do not directly mirror the WNBA’s summer calendar, but they add pressure and opportunity in a changing ecosystem for elite women’s basketball.
For the WNBA, the immediate business is still the title race. The Liberty want validation, the Aces another banner, and the Fever to prove their rise is real.
Opening weekend will offer only a first glimpse, but the stakes are high – the league is larger, the contenders are loaded and the fight for women’s basketball’s biggest stage is no longer confined to one arena.
(Reporting by Angelica Medina in Mexico City, editing by Ed Osmond)
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