Dave Portnoy told his audience this week he wants to buy a WNBA franchise, calling the league "a rocket ship" days after the Golden State Valkyries sold 14,000 season-ticket deposits at $100 each in under 36 hours. The Barstool Sports founder joins a lengthening queue that already includes groups tied to Philadelphia, Houston, Nashville, and South Florida—all positioning for slots the league plans to announce before the 2025 draft in April.
The WNBA expansion window matters because Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said she wants 16 teams by 2028, up from 12 today. Golden State enters play in 2025 at a reported $50 million fee. Toronto confirmed for 2026 at the same number. That leaves two slots for cities that can close before the league's March board meeting, where Engelbert is expected to outline the next tranche. Portnoy's declaration—delivered on his *BFF's Pod* with Josh Richards—lacks the infrastructure announcements other bidders have already made, but it puts a recognized media operator into a field the league has quietly told prospective owners must include $75-100 million in total capitalization to cover fee, arena deals, and two years of operating losses.
What Portnoy brings is 150 million monthly uniques across Barstool's digital properties and a track record of turning women's college basketball into appointment viewing. His *Barstool vs. America* episodes featuring Caitlin Clark during her Iowa tenure drew 1.2 million streams per episode, double his men's football benchmark. Sponsors noticed. Accelerator Active Energy and High Noon both expanded Barstool deals after those numbers posted. The risk for the WNBA is Portnoy himself—his brand thrives on controversy that has cost him commercial partnerships (Penn Entertainment restructured its Barstool relationship in 2023, buying him out for $388 million before selling the brand back to him for $1 six months later). League owners will weigh whether his audience-building skill offsets the governance headaches that come when your franchise principal lives on unscripted video.
The expansion math works if media rights deliver. The league's current 12-year, $2.2 billion deal with Disney, Amazon, and NBC starts in 2026 and pays each team roughly $15 million annually, up from $3 million under the expiring ESPN contract. New franchises banking on that revenue to cover $25-30 million annual budgets need markets that can sell 8,000 season tickets at an average $1,200 price point—numbers Golden State and Toronto have already demonstrated. Portnoy has not named a city. Philadelphia and Houston groups have arena agreements in hand. Nashville has convention bureau funding commitments. South Florida has Stephen Ross.
The timeline tightens because the league wants new owners integrated before the 2026 media launch. Expansion teams need 18 months to hire front offices, sign arena leases, sell founding partnerships, and run jersey reveals that double as sponsor-acquisition events. Portnoy's next move—if this is more than an on-air thought—would be naming a market and a local co-investor with real estate or political access. The league has told bidders it prefers ownership groups with at least one member who has run a venue or a public-company board seat.
Golden State sold those 14,000 deposits on a February weekend. The Valkyries have not announced a jersey sponsor, but three brands are in final conversations at deals starting at $4 million annually, per two people familiar with the negotiations. The NBA's Warriors, who own the WNBA club, are using the same Chase Center suite inventory for both teams—a model that works in markets with Fortune 500 density and corporate entertainment budgets that treat women's sports as a signal, not a charity. Portnoy would need to prove he can sell that room, not just fill an arena.
Watch whether Portnoy names a city before the league's April 14 deadline for preliminary expansion applications. If he does, the co-investor list will tell you if this is real. Philadelphia's group includes Sixers minority owner David Adelman and Elevate Sports Ventures. Houston has Tilman Fertitta. Portnoy has a podcast and a balance sheet from the Penn deal that puts him in range, but expansion requires local power he has not yet demonstrated outside of pizza reviews.
The takeaway
Portnoy's WNBA interest is real money meeting real barriers—he has the capital and the audience, but no market and no local partner.
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