WNBA expanding to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia over next five years

NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA is expanding to 18 teams over the next five years, with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia all set to join the league by 2030.

Cleveland will begin play in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia the season after, assuming they get approval from the NBA and WNBA Board of Governors. Toronto and Portland will enter the league next year.

“The demand for women’s basketball has never been higher, and we are thrilled to welcome Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia to the WNBA family,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “This historic expansion is a powerful reflection of our league’s extraordinary momentum, the depth of talent across the game, and the surging demand for investment in women’s professional basketball.”

All three new teams announced Monday have NBA ownership groups. Each paid a $250 million expansion fee, which is about five times as much as Golden State dished out for a team a few years ago. All three teams will also be investing more money through building practice facilities and other such amenities.

“It’s such a natural fit that when you already have this basketball-related infrastructure, these strategies, cultures that you find to be successful, combinations of personnel that you find to be successful,” said Nic Barlage, CEO of Rock Entertainment Group and the Cavaliers. “Extending that into the WNBA, is just a natural next progression, especially if you have a desire to grow like we do.”

Both Cleveland and Detroit had WNBA teams in the past and Philadelphia was the home for an ABL team.

“This is a huge win for Detroit and the WNBA,” Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores said. “Today marks the long-hoped-for return of the WNBA to a city with deep basketball roots and a championship tradition. Detroit played a key role in the league’s early growth, and we’re proud to reignite that legacy as the WNBA ascends to new heights. Our plans will bring new energy, investment and infrastructure to our city and the WNBA, and additional resources to our community.”

Detroit sports stars Grant Hill, Chris Webber and Jared Goff will have minority ownership stakes in the team.

The Cleveland and Detroit ownership groups said the Rockers and Shock — the names of the previous teams — would be considered but they’d do their due diligence before deciding on what the franchises will be called.

“Rockers will be a part of the mix for sure, but we are at this point, we’re not going to commit to a brand identity because we want to really get into it with our fans, do some research, be very thorough and thoughtful in that process,” Barlage said.

The Detroit and Cleveland teams will play at the NBA arenas that currently exist, while Philadelphia is planning on a new building that will be completed hopefully by 2030.

“We tell the city it’s going to open in 2031. We’re hoping for 2030,” said Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment Managing Partner and co-founder Josh Harris, who owns the 76ers. “So we’re trying to underpromise and overdeliver. But, right now it’s 2031, so that we have a year gap, you know. We’ve got the Xfinity center, the Wells Fargo, they’ll play there.”

Adding these three teams will give the league more natural rivalries with another team on the East Coast and Detroit and Cleveland near each other.

“I think there’s some great historical rivalries in the NBA among these cities and, I think that will carry over to the WNBA,” Detroit Pistons vice president Arn Tellem said. “I would love nothing more to have a rivalry like we do in the NBA with Cleveland and Indiana, Philadelphia and New York and all these great cities and, and I think we will.”

Engelbert said she was impressed with the number of cities that bid for expansion teams, a list that included St. Louis; Kansas City, Mo.; Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; Miami; Denver; Charlotte, N.C.; and Houston.

“There are a variety of cities that obviously 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,” Engelbert said. “The Houston Comets were just an amazing one, the first four inaugural championships in the WNBA. So I would say that’s the one, obviously, we have our eye on. (Owner) Tilman (Feritta) has been a great supporter of the WNBA, and we’ll stay tuned on that.”

Engelbert went on to say that she wanted to spread out the expansion over a few years to not dilute the talent pool.

“We didn’t know the demand would be where the demand ended up when we ran the process last fall into the winter,” Engelbert said. “Given the very high demand and supply, we wanted to evaluate, too, because we’re very careful about, you know, making sure we’re balancing the number of roster spots, the number of teams.

“But one thing I’m very struck by as we get into a new media deal, as the media market evolves, you know, being in these three big basketball cities is going to help from a media perspective, a corporate partners perspective.”

All the metrics, such as attendance, television ratings and sponsorships, have been on the rise the last few seasons.

“You’re seeing the key performance indicators around the business, but then also just the communal impact of having a women’s professional sports team,” Barlage said. “The largest growing segment of our Cavs youth academy, which serves 60,000 kids across the state of Ohio and upstate New York, the fastest growing segment is girls. You know, it’s growing at a 30% clip year over year in participation rates. And so for us to be able to create role models, to be able to create symbols of progress, to create having ambassadors within the community representing all of these things.”

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

FILE - WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert is honored during a Women of Inspiration ceremony during halftime of a WNBA basketball game between the Phoenix Mercury and the Seattle Storm, Sept. 3, 2019, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, file)

FILE - The WNBA logo is seen near a hoop before an WNBA basketball game at Mohegan Sun Arena, Tuesday, May 14, 2019, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

Nic Barlage, representing the Cleveland Cavaliers, and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert listen during a news conference, Monday, June 30, 2025, in New York, announcing WNBA basketball expansion teams in Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland. (AP Photo/Doug Feinberg)

Josh Harris, left, managing partner of the Philadelphia 76ers, Arn Tellem, Detroit Pistons vice chairman, Nic Barlage, representing the Cleveland Cavaliers, listen as WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks during a news conference, Monday, June 30, 2025, in New York, announcing WNBA basketball expansion teams in Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland. (AP Photo/Doug Feinberg)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)