In the first episode of the KSS podcast (go give it a listen if you haven’t yet!), Ben asked me who my WNBA team is, and my answer was that I don’t have one. I’ll always be partial to whatever team Natasha Cloud is on (go Hawks), but I really don’t have a WNBA team in the way that I have, say, an NFL (go Birds) or MLB team (the Fightins).

My first thought was that it’s probably because there isn’t a WNBA team in Philadelphia, so I don’t have a geographic tie to any team. But then I thought about it a little bit harder, and I realized that it’s because for so long, I’ve had to root for the league as a whole.

The WNBA was founded in 1996, riding the momentum of the USA Basketball Women’s National Team winning the gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The inaugural season tipped off in the summer of 1997 with eight teams. By 2000, eight more had joined, bringing the total to 16. But then, from 2000 to 2008, while two new teams were added (the Chicago Sky and Atlanta Dream), six folded (because their owners, who no longer wanted to operate them, couldn’t find anyone to buy them), bringing the total down to 12, where it’s stayed ever since.

But in all that time–the 17 years between expansion franchises–all I could do was hope that the WNBA would survive. I wanted conditions to improve, so that these professionals wouldn’t have to play at rec centers anymore, or cram their long-ass legs into basic economy airplane seats, or play in Russia during the winter and not see the sun for six months just to make a livable wage.

But I didn’t dare to root for expansion–don’t go getting greedy now–when the league’s survival was so precarious.

In addition to the WNBA, there are several other professional women’s sports leagues that have folded: the American Basketball League (ABL), Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), and the list goes on.

Contrast that with the Big Four professional men’s sports leagues (the MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL), which have all existed for at least 75 years and have 30 or 32 teams. For the men’s sports leagues, fandom has run in the family for generations and has been passed down to you and hell if you’re going to ruin family gatherings by switching your team.

Women’s sports don’t have that. We have a miniscule number of teams, and whiplash from trying to keep up with the new teams that have been added only to fold or move to a new city and change their name. We’ve been told to just be grateful for what we have and not dare ask for more than the crumbs that we’ve been given.

But finally, that’s changing. The WNBA’s 13th team, the Golden State Valkyries, will make its debut this season, and will be followed next year by franchises in Toronto and Portland. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) will expand to 16 teams in 2026 (and it cost a record $110 million for Denver to secure the 16th team). The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) recently announced two new expansion teams for the 2025-2026 season.

So I’ll be here, continuing to root for the WNBA as a whole, and petitioning for Philly to get an expansion team, while finally daring to hope that one day my grandkids will be Philadelphia (team name to be determined later) fans because Grandma Katie was.

Yours in hoops,

Katie