76ers Owners Submitting Bid to Bring WNBA Expansion Team to Philadelphia

The NBA team's leaders have formalized their goal.
The 76ers logo before Philadelphia's 115–103 loss to the Nuggets on Jan. 9, 2021.
The 76ers logo before Philadelphia's 115–103 loss to the Nuggets on Jan. 9, 2021. / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Amid a flurry of formal WNBA expansion bids this week, the owners of the Philadelphia 76ers are reportedly throwing their hats in the ring.

Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment has formally submitted a bid for a WNBA expansion team, the group told Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic.

Philadelphia joins Detroit, Nashville, and a variety of other cities in gunning for an expansion squad in the league. The City of Brotherly Love has never had a WNBA team, but it was briefly home to the Philadelphia Rage of the old American Basketball League in the 1990s, who played at Penn's Palestra.

Three WNBA expansion teams are set to join the league in the next two seasons: the Golden State Valkyries, the Toronto Tempo, and an unnamed Portland team.

The flurry of expansion comes amid record interest in the league, spurred in part by a celebrity-filled 2024 rookie class including Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese.


More of the Latest Around the WNBA

feed


Published
Patrick Andres
PATRICK ANDRES

Patrick Andres is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in December 2022, having worked for The Blade, Athlon Sports, Fear the Sword and Diamond Digest. Andres has covered everything from zero-attendance Big Ten basketball to a seven-overtime college football game. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a double major in history .