{"id":33938,"date":"2026-05-06T08:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/33938\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T08:57:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:57:00","slug":"wnba-new-in-toronto-but-womens-basketball-has-long-history-in-canada-nbc-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/33938\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA new in Toronto but women\u2019s basketball has long history in Canada \u2013 NBC New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0WNBA<\/a>, not surprisingly, chose Canada as the country to extend its footprint outside of the U.S. for the first time.<\/p>\n

But while the league will have a new franchise in the country with the expansion\u00a0Toronto Tempo\u00a0making their debut this season, Canada has been sending a pipeline of players to the U.S. for more than three decades.<\/p>\n

Kelly Boucher was the first Canadian player to compete in the league, playing a season with the Charlotte Sting in 1998. Stacey Dales was the highest draft pick of a Canadian, going third in 2002 to the Washington Mystics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think back to when I was growing up the WNBA wasn\u2019t even on TV in Canada when I was growing up,\u201d said Portland\u2019s Bridget Carleton, who is Canadian. \u201cSo to have a team in Toronto, in our country, is just surreal. The young kids are really excited for it, to have access to that and just women\u2019s sports being more visible, so it\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appeared to be only a matter of time. There were nearly 150 Canadians on Division I college rosters this past season, including South Carolina\u2019s Agot Makeer \u2014 a breakout star in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

Three Canadians were selected in the WNBA draft this year \u2014 second to the 2016 draft when four were chosen. This was the fourth consecutive year that a Canadian player was chosen in the draft.<\/p>\n

Kia Nurse has seen what the NBA’s Toronto Raptors have done in the growth of men\u2019s basketball in Canada and believes the Tempo can do the same on the women\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can now field an Olympic men\u2019s team with just NBA players and in the next 10-15 years of the Tempo being in Canada,” Nurse said, “we\u2019ll be able to field a women\u2019s national team in Canada with WNBA players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nurse was one of three Canadian players in the league last year on teams\u2019 final rosters and is the lone Canadian playing for the Tempo \u2014 about 45 minutes from where she grew up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe welcome I got from the fans was so amazing,\u201d Nurse said in a phone interview Monday. \u201cThe first preseason game to see my parents and friends and a bunch of people in the basketball community here was really cool for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nurse scored the first basket in Tempo history, hitting a 3-pointer to start off the preseason game against the Connecticut Sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a fairytale to be here all together,\u201d Nurse said, adding that with all the \u201cups and downs in my career, this feels right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to this season, the WNBA has played three games in Canada, including a regular-season game between Seattle and Atlanta last year. The other two were exhibition games in 2024 (Los Angeles and Seattle) and 2023 (Chicago and Minnesota).<\/p>\n

The Tempo will play two regular-season games in Montreal and two in Vancouver. They’ll also play three games at Scotiabank Arena, where the Raptors play. All Tempo games will air across Canada on TSN as part of a new multiyear Canadian media rights agreement announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tempo is Canada\u2019s team, and it is incredibly important that as many people as possible are able to watch our games and feel part of the Tempo community,\u201d Tempo team president Teresa Resch said. \u201cWhether you\u2019re a longtime sports fan or discovering the WNBA for the first time, Canadians should have the opportunity to experience the Tempo and our incredible players for themselves. This leaguewide agreement delivers consistent, high-quality coverage from one of the country\u2019s biggest broadcasters, and it reflects the biggest broadcast deal the WNBA has ever had outside of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Canada was the first international expansion for the league, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said before the draft last month that she plans on teams playing games overseas next year.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re heavily looking at that,\u201d Engelbert said of playing either an exhibition or regular-season game overseas. \u201cObviously this year we have the FIBA World Cup. Next year we expect that we\u2019ll do something outside of North America as a true global game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCNBC\u2019s Michael Ozanian breaks down the WNBA team valuations, explaining how the Golden State Valkyries became the league\u2019s first $1 billion franchise, why the New York Liberty rank second and how new ownership is driving WNBA franchise growth.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0WNBA, not surprisingly, chose Canada as the country to extend its footprint outside of the U.S. for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,2317],"class_list":{"0":"post-33938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}