The WNBA is coming to Detroit
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News broke last week about the Motor City being selected by the Women’s National Basketball Association as the next homebase for a new professional team. Set to tip off in 2029, the city would join Cleveland and Philadelphia as part of a WNBA expansion franchise.
The City of Detroit is no stranger to professional sports. In the last couple of years, Michiganders witnessed the Detroit Lions (NFL) and the Detroit Pistons (NBA) surge in popularity as the teams have managed to score win after win. But women’s basketball has mostly been absent from the city's scene for nearly twenty years.
“Looking at the sports landscape of Detroit, there’s a gap, and it’s time for us to reinsert gender empowerment into the city,” said Ketra Armstrong, University of Michigan professor of sport management and former Division I NCAA student-athlete and coach.
Cheryl Ford #35 of the Detroit Shock reacts during the WNBA a game in 2007.
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Cheryl Ford #35 of the Detroit Shock reacts during the WNBA a game in 2007.
Up until 2008, Detroit was home to one of the WNBA’s first expansion franchise leagues known as the Detroit Shock. The team debuted in 1998 and by the time it relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, it had become a three time WNBA champion and one of the league’s most successful teams in the 2000s.
“The fan base was incredible and that's always been one of the things that women’s sports have struggled with is amassing a critical mass of support and they [The Detroit Shock] were able to do that,” Armstrong explained.
The team was not just popular among women and girls, Armstrong said, it also included boys and men who were excited about supporting a team in a time when the city of Detroit was desperately looking for a win as it struggled with compounding financial decline, population loss, and debt.
“The team gave people good quality, excitement…a sense of belonging… and something to believe in, something that was larger than all of us,” she added.
The last time the city was home to an NBA it ranked top five in attendance for five straight seasons and set a single-game attendance record of 22,076 fans at Game 3 of the 2003 WNBA Finals.
Armstrong sees the return of professional women’s basketball to the city as the perfect opportunity to bring that excitement back to Detroit and Michiganders.
“I really think Detroit is one of the best kept secrets, and the narrative that has long described Detroit is so unfair,” Armstrong said. ”I am hoping that with the participation of the league can help with the vibrancy of the city because girls and women and boys and men need to see a vision of inspiration at the professional level,” she said.
The yet to be named new Detroit league is joining the WNBA’s 15 existing teams. The league’s first anticipated game is expected sometime in 2029.
To hear the full conversation with Ketra Armstrong tune in to the Stateside On Air podcast.