During the most recent WNBA season, the league, which has been around since 1996, saw major growth in viewership, attendance and the amount of media attention devoted to women’s basketball.
That might have a lot to do with new standouts like Angel Reese from the Chicago Sky and of course, the rookie of the year, sweet shooting point guard Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever. Now, the league is trying to capitalize on this attention by expanding: Over the next two seasons, the WNBA will add clubs in San Francisco, Portland and Toronto, bringing it to 15 teams.
There are rumors that a 16th member could also join the W. But where to put it? Well, maybe Austin.
Working to make that idea a reality is Fran Harris, who won championships with South Oak Cliff High School, the University of Texas at Austin and the Houston Comets. Harris, who’s also a former ESPN announcer, a filmmaker and founder of multiple companies, joined the Standard to share more about her efforts.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Why Austin for the WNBA? Of all the cities a team could go to.
Fran Harris: Austin is the perfect intersection of culture, sports – free agency feel. It’s a great place to live. The weather’s not too bad as long as it’s not the summer and it’s hotter than July, I mean.
But Austin has a built-in sports fan base for women’s basketball. That’s what differentiates it from the other applicants looking to bring teams to their cities.
How long have you been working on this effort?
I started officially talking to Austin in the spring of 2023, and I started talking to Austin because, as excited as I was about bringing a WNBA team possibly to Austin, Austin has to be excited about a WNBA team coming here, right?
So talked to the mayor, talked to council members, talked to people on the street, literally: “What do you think of a WNBA team coming to Austin? Do you support the women’s basketball team at Texas?” Just literally my own research.
And once I knew that Austin was excited about the possibility of bringing a WNBA team here, then I reached out to the commissioner and said, I’d like to possibly bring a group together to bring a team to Austin. And she introduced me to their legal department, and thus we were on our way.
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Do you see the league’s new blood – Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark – as being the principal reason for the WNBA’s big season, you know, an upward trajectory, or are there other things going on?
I do believe the college game in general made a huge uptick into WNBA interest. There’s no question about what’s happening with women’s college basketball exploded, and then that trickled over into the WNBA.
So the W is already growing. But when you bring literally international stars who are 21- and 22-year-olds who have their own databases, their own fan bases to the league, it’s obviously going to grow the league.
So, very exciting that the college game now has that relationship and that impact on professional women’s basketball as well.