Advertisement - scroll for more content
Portland’s expansion WNBA franchise has hired CAA Search, the executive search branch of Creative Artists Agency, to identify and recruit candidates for the team’s GM position. RAJ Sports -- whose co-founders Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal own the Portland franchise, as well as the NWSL Portland Thorns -- initiated the directive in an announcement on Wednesday. The Bhathals made clear that the new GM will oversee basketball operations, personnel choices, coaching hires, salary cap management and long-term roster decisions. Joe Aiken, partner at CAA Search, has been tasked with canvassing the country for the right candidates.
New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu is becoming an investor for the NWSL club Bay FC, the club announced Monday.New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu is becoming an investor for the NWSL club Bay FC, the club announced Monday. The 2024 WNBA champion is also joining the club as an "official commercial advisor," a position that will help the organization with commercial and marketing strategies. "I whole-heartedly understand how important investment really is and obviously you can talk about it and be about it, but you really have to want to be committed to it and invest to be able to see what you believe in come to light," Ionescu told ESPN.
Amazon Prime Video is betting that a stacked lineup of sports can help it turbocharge its fast-growing advertising business. The tech giant’s video streaming service already has NFL Thursday Night Football, which averaged 13.2 million viewers last season, and it has WNBA and NWSL games, giving it a lineup of women’s sports. This year it will add NASCAR Cup Series and, in the fall, the NBA, giving it a year-round presence, and the ability to give advertisers and sponsors the ability to spend big 12 months out of the year. “We’re really excited about elevating and being a new voice inside the NBA, and driving new audiences that are really valuable to our customers,” says Danielle Carney, the head of live sports and video sales for Amazon Ads. “When we think about how we start to partner with customers, we’re thinking about this from a multi-sport perspective. We’re able to connect the dots for them across the calendar now, through sponsorship and brand innovations that we’re doing.”
A group led by the NWSL’s Kansas City Current co-owners Angie Long, Chris Long, Brittany Mahomes and Patrick Mahomes submitted a formal bid to bring an expansion team to Kansas City. Current co-owner Chris Long told The Athletic that the group has already signed an agreement with T-Mobile Center to be the downtown stadium’s anchor tenant and that the Kansas City WNBA franchise would build a 60,000-square-foot privately-financed practice facility on land the group already owns in the same area as the Current’s facility.
Trinity, who plays for the Washington Spirit of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), reflected on the strained relationship she has with her father, despite his efforts to help maintain a close public image. She insisted she finds it "frustrating" whenever she is doing interviews and is asked about her father, due to the "trauma" that she has held inside about him. "I think we never want to make him look bad, and that is at the cost of kind of holding in a lot and a lot of issues that we’ve gone through and just trauma per se," she said in the episode. "I just feel like I’ve been in a place of going through interviews where people are like, ‘Oh, was your dad there? What’s your dad feeling?’ and I feel like I try to make it obvious that I don’t know."
Advertisement
Dennis “DJ” Rodman Jr., whose sister, Trinity Rodman, plays for the Washington Spirit of the National Women’s Soccer League and won a gold medal with Team USA in the 2024 Paris Games, played at Washington State from 2019 to 2023, averaging 9.6 points and 5.8 rebounds in his final season. Following the 2022-23 season, Rodman transferred to USC, where he joined a roster headlined by No. 1 high school prospect Isaiah Collier and Bronny James, the son of Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James. The Trojans were ranked No. 21 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, and the program became a media circus due to the presence of the younger James. “We were probably one of the most hyped teams in college basketball,” Rodman said.
Former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry is nearing a deal to buy a control stake in the NWSL‘s North Carolina Courage from Steve Malik at a roughly $108 million valuation, according to multiple people familiar with the details.
The WNBA has granted Portland, Oregon an expansion team. The new Portland franchise will join the league as the 15th team and is set to begin play in 2026. The expansion team will be owned by RAJ sports, which is run by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. RAJ sports also owns the Portland Thorns of the NWSL.
After a previously planned WNBA expansion team fell through just before the finish line last fall, Portland is closing in on finally landing a team that will begin playing in 2026, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the plans. The Bhathal family, owners of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns, will lead the ownership group for the new team, sources say.
The Portland Thorns have been acquired by the Bhathal family, investors in the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, the National Women’s Soccer League team announced Wednesday. RAJ Sports purchased the team for $63 million, according to a person familiar with the deal.
Advertisement
Grant Hill is back on the Orlando sports scene, but the former NBA guard/forward and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer-turned-TV-analyst-turned-USA Basketball executive is adding to his resume yet again. Friday, the Orlando resident became a limited partner with Orlando City (MLS) and the Orlando Pride (NWSL) franchises along with his wife, Tamia, the club announced.
Four-time NBA champion Andre Iguodala has joined the ownership group of Bay FC, the new expansion NWSL franchise. Iguodala, who is an accomplished investor outside his 19-year NBA career, was announced as a minority owner Saturday afternoon at an event in San Francisco.
The Utah Royals are officially back, and with a handful of new investors. Kraft Analytics Group CEO Jessica Gelman and Philadelphia 76ers exec Daryl Morey are part of a group that recently bought into Utah Soccer LLC, the parent of MLS club Real Salt Lake and the Royals, which will rejoin the NWSL next year. They investors will provide strategic expertise to the Royals, which Utah Soccer backers David Blitzer and Ryan Smith paid roughly $2 million to revive—a heavy discount compared with current expansion fees.
Trinity Rodman, 19, the daughter of NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, is the highest-paid player in league history. The 2021 Rookie of the Year received a contract extension with the Washington Spirit. Her new extension includes a four-year deal for $1.1 million, currently more than what she was earning under her prior agreement — a three-year contract with a net pay of $42,000 to play in the National Women’s Soccer League.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement