The Playbook · July 13, 2026

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July 13–19, 2026

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Hey hey! This week's newsletter highlights new teams joining your favorite leagues for the 2027 season and beyond. Five leagues, a whole lot of new cities, and some numbers that show just how much women's sports has changed.

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This Week: The Expansion Wave

🏀 WNBA

Houston, Cleveland, Detroit, Philly

Houston (2027). The Comets are back, and this is a big deal. Houston's original team won the WNBA's first four championships ever, led by the legendary trio of Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson, and no franchise since has matched that run. The Connecticut Sun are relocating to make it happen, landing at Toyota Center. Click2Houston

Cleveland (2028). Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert is bringing the league back to a city that had a team from 1997 to 2003, back when the WNBA had just eight franchises total. WNBA

Detroit (2029). Another nostalgia pick. The Shock played from 1998 to 2009 and won three championships, and Pistons owner Tom Gores will revive them at Little Caesars Arena. WNBA

Philadelphia (2030). The one true blank slate of the group, landing under 76ers owner Josh Harris right as the league moves to a 52-game season. Here's the number that tells the story: each of these three franchises paid a record $250 million just to join the league, the clearest sign yet of how fast this market has grown. WNBA

⚽ NWSL

Atlanta and Columbus, both 2028

Atlanta (2028). Falcons owner Arthur Blank is bringing the league's 17th club to a reconfigured Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the team already made news before playing a single game. It just signed a seven-year, $28 million jersey sponsorship with Aflac, the largest front-of-kit deal in women's sports history. Part of the partnership means kids at a local children's cancer center will get their own plush Aflac Duck dressed in the team's jersey. NWSL

Columbus (2028). The league's 18th club will play at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, the same ground where the USWNT won the 2024 SheBelieves Cup on penalties over Canada. Fans can already reserve seats with a $28 deposit at columbusnwsl2028.com. For perspective on how far this league has come, Angel City and San Diego Wave paid around $2 million each to join back in 2021. Columbus paid $205 million. Forbes

🏒 PWHL

PWHL adds four for 2026-27

Detroit. The city didn't need to convince the league of anything. Little Caesars Arena has hosted four PWHL neutral-site games and pulled in nearly 54,000 fans across three seasons, more than any other city in the country. Detroit basically earned a team by showing up before they even had one. PWHL

Hamilton. This one makes perfect sense when you see the numbers: more than 15 percent of all current PWHL players grew up in the Hamilton area, and when the league held a Takeover Tour stop there, 70 percent of the 16,000-plus fans who showed up had never bought a PWHL ticket before. That is a fanbase that has been waiting. PWHL

Las Vegas. The Golden Knights arrived in 2017 and girls' hockey participation in Las Vegas jumped 600 percent. Six hundred. The PWHL clearly noticed, and now the city gets its first team, playing at T-Mobile Arena. PWHL

San Jose. The Bay Area will soon have three pro women's sports teams. The new club will play at SAP Center in orange, blue, and white pulled directly from the San Jose city flag, and California ranks sixth in the country in girls' hockey participation. Season-ticket deposits are open now at PWHLSanJose.com. PWHL

🏐 MLV

New MLV Teams - Northern California - Volleyball

MLV grows from 8 teams to 12

Washington D.C. The head coach hire alone is worth paying attention to. Deitre Collins-Parker was a two-time national college player of the year at Hawaii, spent seven years on the U.S. national team, and has 25 years of college coaching experience. The long-term venue goal is Audi Field, which already hosts the Washington Spirit, once a roof is added. MLV

Minnesota. Saint Paul is quietly becoming one of the most stacked women's sports arenas in the country. The MLV team will play at Grand Casino Arena, and the PWHL's Frost play just down the road at Xcel Energy Center. Minnesota also ranks in the top 20 nationally as a media market, which is part of why the league targeted it. PR Newswire

Northern California. This is only the second MLV team with female-majority ownership, led by Kerri Walsh Jennings, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and Bay Area native, alongside Theresia Gouw, whom Forbes recognized as the first female venture-capitalist billionaire. The team covers San Jose to Sacramento, a wide net that taps into one of the deepest volleyball talent pipelines in the country. MLV

Los Angeles. Head coach Alisha Childress is an Olympian and three-time NCAA champion, which is the kind of hire that signals a team is serious. The club is based at NantWorks in El Segundo, a campus run by majority owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who also holds a minority stake in the Lakers. SportCal

🏐 LOVB

LOVB grows from 6 teams to 10

Los Angeles. Alexis Ohanian, the Reddit co-founder who already owns a piece of Angel City FC and the LA Golf Club, is leading the ownership group. He called volleyball "a natural addition for Southern California," and he is not wrong: the region is home to some of the deepest youth volleyball talent in the country, and the sport has been a beach and high school staple here for decades. LOVB

Minnesota. Minnesota ranks fourth nationally in girls' high school volleyball participation, and the state high school championships regularly sell out. LOVB noted that two current pro players, Tori Dixon and Alexis Hart, are both Gopher All-Americans, and two-time Olympic medalist Jordan Thompson grew up in Minneapolis. LOVB

San Francisco. The Signal is the league's first team with a traditional nickname, chosen through a fan vote that collected 242 name submissions from the community. It beat out the Swell and the Tide in the final round. The roster will include three-time Olympic medalist Kelsey Robinson Cook, and the team is coached by Alfee Reft, who spent three seasons at UCLA. SF Standard

Miami. LOVB's 10th franchise and the anchor of the new Eastern Conference alongside Atlanta, Madison, Minnesota, and Nebraska. About a third of all LOVB athletes are international, and Miami's deep Latina, Brazilian, and Caribbean volleyball communities make this market one of the most natural fits in the league's expansion history. LOVB

Top Matchups This Week

⚽ NWSL · Rivalry Week

The Queens Classic: Gotham FC vs. Washington Spirit

A 2025 NWSL Championship rematch at Citi Field, the first NWSL match ever played inside New York City. Airs on ESPN.

Wed Jul 15 · 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT

🥎 AUSL · Final Week

Softball's Playoff Push

The regular season wraps July 20 with only the top three teams heading to the playoffs. The No. 2 and 3 seeds play a July 23 play-in, and Game 1 of the best-of-three Championship airs July 25 on ABC, the first pro softball game ever on network TV.

Regular season ends Jul 20

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