The WNBA has been hinting at an expansion for the past few years, and one of its strong candidates happens to be one of the country’s most successful sports cities of the last few years.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert is set to visit Denver on Wednesday, Aug. 15, as the city looks to become the league’s 13th franchise, according to a report by The Denver Post.
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Engelbert will meet with an investor team -- including Robert Cohen, chairman and chief executive of IMA Financial Group, the Denver provider of insurance, wealth-management and other services; Navin Dimond, co-founder and CEO of Stonebridge Cos., the Denver hotel and resort manager; and his daughter, Ashley Dimond, who is Stonebridge’s director of strategy.
The city was on the list of 10 candidates that Engelbert told Front Office Sports that the league was considering for its expansion franchises.
The city is coming off a lot of pro-sports success in recent years, including the National Basketball Association's Denver Nuggets, who won the franchise’s first title in June. The National Hockey League's Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 2022, while the National Football League's Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl in 2016.
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The WNBA is targeting 2025 for its expansion to 13 or 14 teams. There’s a push among players, fans and the league for the expansion as the league for now has only 144 roster spots for its players.
Plenty of top draft picks every year are unable to make the rosters due to the lack of slots. Others are given only a year or two. A prominent example was the 2020 Rookie of the Year, Crystal Dangerfield, who was cut by the Minnesota Lynx just two years after she won the award.
But some of the current WNBA players are also adamant about fixing the service provided to the players already in the league, particularly in providing charter flights for players. The players are still mostly flying via commercial airlines, save for a few exceptions.
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