{"id":32901,"date":"2025-07-02T15:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32901\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T15:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T15:25:09","slug":"houston-to-continue-pursuit-of-wnba-expansion-team-earns-mention-from-wnba-commissioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32901\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston to continue pursuit of WNBA expansion team, earns &#8216;mention&#8217; from WNBA commissioner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-leagues-and-governing-bodies \">Rockets President of Business Operations Gretchen Sheirr said that a group led by Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta will \u201ccontinue to pursue\u201d a WNBA team for the city amid news of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/06\/30\/wnba-announces-expansion-to-cleveland-detroit-and-philadelphia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/06\/30\/wnba-announces-expansion-to-cleveland-detroit-and-philadelphia\/\">the league expanding with three new teams by 2030<\/a>, according to Vorkunov &amp; Pickman of THE ATHLETIC. Sheirr said in a statement, \u201cThe addition of three WNBA expansion teams is a testament to the trajectory of the league and the excitement surrounding women\u2019s basketball.\u201d Vorkunov &amp; Pickman wrote outside of expansion, there are \u201cother opportunities\u201d for Fertitta to \u201cbring a WNBA team back to Houston.\u201d The Sun \u201care <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/05\/12\/report-mohegan-tribe-exploring-sale-of-connecticut-sun\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/05\/12\/report-mohegan-tribe-exploring-sale-of-connecticut-sun\/\">currently exploring a sale<\/a>, including one that could bring in a new controlling owner,\u201d and Fertitta could choose to \u201ctake the route of buying the Sun and relocating them to Houston\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6466451\/2025\/07\/01\/wnba-houston-team-expansion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">THE ATHLETIC, 7\/1<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-leagues-and-governing-bodies \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/06\/30\/houston-could-be-next-for-wnba-expansion-amid-criticism-that-league-is-too-ambitious\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/06\/30\/houston-could-be-next-for-wnba-expansion-amid-criticism-that-league-is-too-ambitious\/\"><b>RELATED: Houston could be next for WNBA expansion amid criticism that league is too ambitious<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-leagues-and-governing-bodies \"><b>SHOUTOUT<\/b>: In Houston, Matt Young wrote Fertitta \u201cput in a bid for a WNBA franchise\u201d\u202fand was \u201cturned down alongside other bidders in\u202fAustin, Miami, Denver, Charlotte, Nashville, Kansas City and St. Louis, among others.\u201d However, it was only Fertitta and Houston that \u201cearned a mention\u201d from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert during the league\u2019s Monday press conference to announce\u202fthe latest expansion. Engelbert said, \u201cThere are a variety of cities that bid, and one of those I wanted to shout out, because they have such a strong history in this league and their great ownership group, is Houston\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/sports\/rockets\/article\/wnba-expansion-comets-future-new-team-relocate-20401436.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 6\/30<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rockets President of Business Operations Gretchen Sheirr said that a group led by Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[1339,4345,358,3187,232,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-32901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-tx","12":"tag-wnba","13":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114784339529853272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}