Courtesy of Portland Fire Official
On Sept. 18, 2024, the WNBA announced that it had awarded Portland with the league’s 15th franchise, set to begin playing in 2026. After months of anticipation, the league announced on July 15 that the team would be named the Portland Fire, reviving the identity of Portland’s original WNBA team that played from 2000 to 2002.
“Portland has a passion for women’s sports and the teams who play in the Rose City, making us the ideal home of the next WNBA team,” Governor Tina Kotek said in a press statement in September. “From the Thorns to the Rose City Rollers to the Sports Bra, Portland embraces a diversity of athletes and fans. This is an exciting new chapter for our city and our state.”
The Fire, who will play at the Moda Center, emerge as a bold symbol of city pride. Its branding, developed by local agency Adopt, blends modern aesthetics with regional iconography: a stylized “P” curves into the silhouette of Mount Hood, a fiery rose emblem nods to Portland’s “City of Roses” legacy and its letterforms are inspired by the twelve bridges connecting the city.
The establishment of the team represents Portland’s efforts to become a leader in the global women’s sports movement. Driving this initiative is the investment company RAJ Sports, led by siblings Alex Bhathal and Lisa Bhathal Merage. With their acquisition of both the new Fire WNBA expansion team and the National Women’s Soccer League team the Portland Thorns, the company has become the first American ownership group to control teams in both leagues. Their mission is to build a world-class women’s sports network in Portland based on innovative practices, equity and infrastructure that puts athletes first.
“For decades, Portland has been the global epicenter of sports lifestyle and today, we are now the global epicenter of women’s sports,” Bhathal Merage said in last year’s announcement of the franchise. “We believe in the transformative power of women’s sports and are thrilled that the W will call Portland home. We know that Portland’s vibrant and diverse communities will highly support and rally around this team. Our goal is to grow this organization in partnership with the Portland community and we look forward to supporting the best women’s basketball players in the world when they take the floor at the Moda Center in 2026.”
The new franchise comes at a time when women’s sports are receiving more attention than ever before. Just last year, the WNBA announced that the 2024 season had been its most-watched regular season in 24 years, had finished with its highest attendance in 22 years and set an all-time record of 54 million unique viewers across several television networks. With players like Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese becoming increasingly recognized for their performances, women’s basketball is capturing the nation’s attention.
Fans responded to the Fire with overwhelming enthusiasm, with the franchise stating that, just days after the brand announcement, they had surpassed more than 12,500 season-ticket deposits. To celebrate, the Moda Center hosted a free launch celebration featuring interactive activities, special guests and merchandise drops emblazoned with the team’s new logo. The event also marked the beginning of the inaugural Epicenter: Women’s Global Sports Summit in Portland, a four-day event that brought together athletes, global leaders in sports and community members to discuss the investment in and prioritization of women’s sports. Also referred to as “Epicenter Week,” the event spotlighted youth engagement and community events across Portland, with an emphasis on conversations around aligning city infrastructure, economic resources and community culture to support the development of women’s sports across the country.
But this is not the first time the city has rallied around a women’s basketball team. The original Fire was Portland’s WNBA team from 2000 to 2002, playing for only three seasons before folding without a playoff appearance. The team, established under the ownership of Portland Trail Blazers chairman Paul Allen, started its run in 2000 with a disappointing 10–22 record. The following year, the franchise found a bright spot when rookie Jackie Stiles was named Rookie of the Year, despite the team’s ongoing struggles. Unfortunately, a serious injury in 2002 sidelined Stiles for most of the season. Despite her absence, the Fire showed improvement and finished the season with an even win-loss record.
The team’s success was short-lived, as the 2002 season was its last. That year, the WNBA began transitioning ownership of its teams. Paul Allen, facing financial pressures from his underperforming Trail Blazers, declined to purchase the franchise. With a separate ownership bid from a group including former Blazer Clyde Drexler falling through, the team officially ceased operations. This meant a unique and unfortunate outcome for the Fire: it was the only WNBA team to dissolve without ever making the playoffs.
Despite the inauspicious end to the original Fire’s run, the management of the new team has already set plans in motion to create infrastructure to support them. Along with the establishment of the team, RAJ Sports announced in February of this year that they would be investing $150 million into the development of a dual-sport training facility for both the Fire and the Thorns to be built in Hillsboro. Upon completion, the 12-acre campus is set to contain a 63,000-square-foot training facility, a 17,000-square-foot practice gym featuring two full-size basketball courts, two full-size soccer pitches and numerous other amenities designed to create a holistic training, recovery and wellness center specific to the needs of female athletes.
As the Fire prepare for their debut in 2026, they continue to build anticipation among fans. The franchise joins the WNBA at the same time as Toronto’s expansion team, with additional teams expected to arrive in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia over the next several years. With robust infrastructure, confident ownership and an energized fan base, the Portland Fire are poised to blaze a new trail in the city’s sports history and bring professional women’s basketball back to a city eager to embrace it.
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