The WNBA, not surprisingly, chose Canada as the country to extend its footprint outside of the U.S. for the first time.
But while the league will have a new franchise in the country with the expansion Toronto Tempo making their debut this season, Canada has been sending a pipeline of players to the U.S. for more than three decades.
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.
“I think back to when I was growing up the WNBA wasn’t even on TV in Canada when I was growing up,” said Portland’s Bridget Carleton, who is Canadian. “So 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’s sports being more visible, so it’s exciting.”
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’s Agot Makeer — a breakout star in the NCAA Tournament.
Three Canadians were selected in the WNBA draft this year — second to the 2016 draft when four were chosen. This was the fourth consecutive year that a Canadian player was chosen in the draft.
Kia Nurse has seen what the NBA's Toronto Raptors have done in the growth of men’s basketball in Canada and believes the Tempo can do the same on the women’s side.
“We can now field an Olympic men’s team with just NBA players and in the next 10-15 years of the Tempo being in Canada," Nurse said, "we’ll be able to field a women’s national team in Canada with WNBA players.”
Nurse was one of three Canadian players in the league last year on teams’ final rosters and is the lone Canadian playing for the Tempo — about 45 minutes from where she grew up.
“The welcome I got from the fans was so amazing,” Nurse said in a phone interview Monday. “The first preseason game to see my parents and friends and a bunch of people in the basketball community here was really cool for me.”
Nurse scored the first basket in Tempo history, hitting a 3-pointer to start off the preseason game against the Connecticut Sun.
“It's a fairytale to be here all together,” Nurse said, adding that with all the “ups and downs in my career, this feels right.”
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).
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.
“The Tempo is Canada’s 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,” Tempo team president Teresa Resch said. “Whether you’re 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’s biggest broadcasters, and it reflects the biggest broadcast deal the WNBA has ever had outside of the United States.”
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.
"We’re heavily looking at that,” Engelbert said of playing either an exhibition or regular-season game overseas. “Obviously this year we have the FIBA World Cup. Next year we expect that we’ll do something outside of North America as a true global game.”
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
Fans cheer as the Toronto Tempo take on the Connecticut Sun during first half pre-season WNBA basketball game in Toronto, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)
Toronto Tempo Kia Nurse (11) drives past Connecticut Sun Rayah Marshall (25) and Olivia Nelson-Ododa (10) during second half pre-season WNBA basketball game in Toronto, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)
Toronto Tempo guard Kia Nurse (11) drives past Connecticut Sun Raegan Beers (15) during second half pre-season WNBA basketball game in Toronto, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections.
The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state's current map.
The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling last week significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans in various states grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
It could lessen congressional representation for Black Americans and other minorities, reversing decades of gains in minority voting rights.
President Donald Trump has been encouraging more states to join in redistricting as Republicans seek to hold on to their narrow House majority in this year’s elections.
Alabama lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday on legislation that would allow a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.
In light of the court's ruling on Louisiana's districts, Alabama officials have asked the high court to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters and instead let the state revert to a map previously passed by Republican lawmakers. That map could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.
Alabama's primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state's request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.
“This is the voice of the people,” Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said while promoting the Republican plan. “We had three judges determine how five million people were supposed to vote, and I don’t think that’s the way.”
Before a House committee advanced the plan Tuesday, several Black residents urged lawmakers not to change the current congressional districts.
“Representation matters — not just politically but in access, in power and in who gets to be heard,” said Eliza Jane Franklin, of rural Barbour County.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. The move comes after pressure from Trump.
The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.
Some clergy members have denounced the plan to split Memphis’ congressional district, and Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about it.
“This decision undermines the work that my father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., carried out to help secure passage of the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote, noting that his father was assassinated in Memphis. He added: “Do not dismantle the only Congressional district that provides Black voters in Memphis a fair opportunity to have a voice in our democracy. Do not take this nation back to the days of Jim Crow.”
After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts.
Louisiana state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who chairs a Senate committee tasked with redistricting, told The Associated Press that his committee plans to hold a public hearing Friday. Kleinpeter said lawmakers are still weighing their options, including bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority-Black Congressional districts.
Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana's congressional primary. They are encouraging people in Louisiana — where early voting already is underway — to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.
Florida became the eighth state to enact new House districts when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Monday he had signed a redrawn map passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature. It could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats. The new map was immediately challenged in court as a partisan gerrymander that violates a Florida constitutional provision against drawing districts that favor one political party over another.
All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states. The newly proposed redistricting in Southern states could add to the Republicans’ tally.
Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
A woman protests against a special session of the state legislature to redraw U.S. Congressional voting maps Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
People protest against a special session of the state legislature to redraw U.S. Congressional voting maps Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
FILE - Pansies bloom in front of the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., April 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)
FILE - The Tennessee Capitol is seen, Jan. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
