"This is huge for Portland. We are so honored and humbled to be the vessel that delivers this WNBA franchise to Portland," Lisa Bhathal said. "And that's really how we consider ourselves. Portland is this incredibly diverse, enthusiastic community. We saw the passion first-hand when we started looking into the Portland Thorns and this is Basketball City. So we're very excited about the future."
"I think from our perspective, knowing that the league was interested in coming to Portland, gave us confidence that pursuing the opportunity would be well received by the league," Alex Bhathal said. "The idea of expanding our footprint in Portland and being able to create a platform focused on women's sports in the Portland market and really being able to put the foothold and to put a stake in the ground in Portland and make the mark as the epicenter of a global women's sport market is something that was really compelling and interesting to us and very deserving by the community of Portland."
"It's nice to have the Pacific Northwest kind of locked in now," WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. Engelbert has said she hopes to have more teams by 2028 but doesn't think that the league will be adding any more that will start playing before 2027.
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