– RAJ Sports to Launch
Newest WNBA Team, Which Will Debut in 2026 Season –
NEW YORK and PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 18, 2024 – The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) introduced immediately that it has awarded Portland, Oregon, the league’s 15th franchise. The Portland crew, set to start play within the 2026 season, shall be owned and operated by RAJ Sports, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. Portland is the third growth franchise awarded by the WNBA throughout this spherical of growth, following the Golden State Valkyries and a Toronto franchise, bringing the league from 12 to fifteen groups.
“As the WNBA builds on a season of unprecedented growth, bringing a team back to Portland is another important step forward,” mentioned WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “Portland has been an epicenter of the women’s sports movement and is home to a passionate community of basketball fans. Pairing this energy with the Bhathal family’s vision of leading top-flight professional sports teams will ensure that we deliver a premier WNBA team to the greater Portland area.”
Lisa Bhathal Merage will function controlling proprietor and WNBA Governor, whereas Alex Bhathal will function Alternate Governor. The Bhathal household (Lisa, Alex and their dad and mom, Marta and Raj) brings greater than 50 years of expertise within the skilled sports activities business, together with serving as traders of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and controlling homeowners of the National Women’s Soccer League’s Portland Thorns. Ms. Merage’s husband, Richard Merage, may also be part of the client group as an investor and Executive Board member of Portland WNBA. Mr. Merage is the Chief Executive Officer of MIG Capital, LLC, an funding administration agency he co-founded in 2006 following the sale of his household’s enterprise, Chef America, to Nestle.
“For decades, Portland has been the global epicenter of sports lifestyle and today, we are now the global epicenter of women’s sports,” mentioned Lisa Bhathal Merage. “We believe in the transformative power of women’s sports and are thrilled that the W will call Portland home. We know that Portland’s vibrant and diverse communities will highly support and rally around this team. Our goal is to grow this organization in partnership with the Portland community and we look forward to supporting the best women’s basketball players in the world when they take the floor at the Moda Center in 2026.”
The crew will play its house video games on the Moda Center in downtown Portland. Fans who want to purchase season tickets for the WNBA Portland crew can accomplish that by inserting a deposit at WNBA.com/portland. The new crew marks the WNBA’s return to Portland after greater than 20 years. The Portland Fire performed three seasons within the WNBA from 2000-02.
The newest growth announcement comes amid the WNBA’s historic 28th season. In addition to saying three new groups, the league in latest months has added its most anticipated rookie class ever; signed a groundbreaking new media rights deal; and shattered information for viewership, attendance, merchandise gross sales, social media engagement, digital subscriptions (WNBA League Pass) and app downloads.
Additional Quotes:
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden
“Today puts basketball fans in Portland and all across Oregon in the ‘W” column,” Wyden mentioned. “Our city and entire state have consistently set the gold standard for supporting women’s sports, and I’m thrilled the Bhathal family is expanding its commitment to women’s sports locally by bringing Portland a much-deserved WNBA franchise. I know from hosting Commissioner Engelbert for a roundtable at the Sports Bra in February 2023 with women athletes, women’s sports executives and coaches that enthusiasm for women’s basketball is off the charts. And I can’t wait for this new team to tip off in 2026.”
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek
“Portland has a passion for women’s sports and the teams who play in the Rose City, making us the ideal home of the next WNBA team,” Governor Kotek mentioned. “From the Thorns to the Rose City Rollers to the Sports Bra, Portland embraces a diversity of athletes and fans. This is an exciting new chapter for our city and our state.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler
“We are thrilled to welcome the WNBA to Portland, a city renowned for its vibrant sports culture and deep commitment to fostering women’s athletics,” mentioned Mayor Ted Wheeler. “This expansion marks a significant milestone in our city’s sports history and underscores our role as a burgeoning hub for women’s sports. It’s more than basketball; it’s about energizing our community, enhancing our local economy, and celebrating pride in our city.”
RAJ SPORTS
RAJ Sports, led by Alex Bhathal and Lisa Bhathal Merage, focuses on funding alternatives in sports activities and sports-related properties, drawing on the Bhathal household’s multi-generational expertise and relationships within the business. The agency seeks to leverage the facility of sports activities to have an effect on broader social and financial change by quite a lot of enterprise and philanthropic methods. Its deep expertise in skilled sports activities operations and large-scale actual property developments that create thriving neighborhood facilities, positions the agency to ship precious property that can help additional development for the gamers, employees, and followers. In 2013, the Bhathal household turned traders within the Sacramento Kings (NBA); subsequently constructing the platform to incorporate the Sacramento RiverCats (MiLB), Stockton Kings (NBA G-League) and several other sports activities anchored actual property developments. The 2024 acquisitions of Portland Thorns (NWSL) and the WNBA Portland growth crew represents a milestone for town of Portland and locations it on the epicenter of development for girls’s sports activities.
About the WNBA
The WNBA is a daring, progressive basketball league that stands for the facility of girls. Currently in its 28th season in 2024, the W is a novel sports activities property that mixes competitors and leisure with a dedication to variety, fairness and inclusion and social duty. Through its world-class athletes, the in-game fan expertise, TV and digital broadcasts, digital and social content material, and neighborhood and youth outreach applications, the league celebrates and elevates the sport of basketball and the tradition round it. In 2020, the WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) signed a groundbreaking CBA that has charted a brand new course for girls’s basketball – and ladies’s sports activities total – with a concentrate on elevated participant compensation, enhancements to the participant expertise, expanded profession growth alternatives and assets particularly tailor-made to the feminine skilled athlete. Key components of the settlement are supported by the league’s partnership platform, the WNBA Changemakers Collective, with AT&T, the WNBA’s Marquee Partner and inaugural Changemaker, in addition to fellow inaugural Changemakers Deloitte and NIKE, Inc., and subsequent additions Google, U.S. Bank and CarMax. During the 2020 season, the WNBA and WNBPA launched the WNBA Justice Movement forming the Social Justice Council with the mission of being a driving drive of essential change and persevering with work concerning girls’s and maternal well being and voting rights, amongst different vital societal points.
