This November, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) announced the name of its brand-new Toronto franchise: the Toronto Tempo. The new team will be Canada’s first WNBA team.
The team will begin playing in 2026 at the Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto, an 8,500-person capacity arena also home to the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Toronto Sceptres.
The franchise is owned and operated by Kilmer Sports Ventures, led by Larry Tanenbaum, a Toronto-based billionaire who also holds ownership stakes in other Toronto sports teams, including the NBA’s Raptors and the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Maple Leafs.
According to Tanenbaum, the franchise aims to emphasize the importance of bringing professional women’s basketball to Canada and leveraging Toronto’s sports market to grow the WNBA’s global presence. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert added that the team could help the league expand internationally.
The franchise could also empower women and advance gender equality, according to the Tempo’s first founding partner, Sephora Canada.
Nelly Owusu, an athlete on the Stingers women’s basketball team, has been playing basketball for 20 years.
“When the news came out that the WNBA were expanding to Toronto, I was super excited,” Owusu said. “Last year, Toronto held a WNBA game, and it was literally sold out.”
Her excitement was echoed by other Stingers.
“For young female athletes, I think it’s going to be incredibly inspiring,” said Stinger basketball player Serena Tchida. “They’ll have role models to look up to who are closer to home, players they can actually watch live and maybe even meet someday.”
Toronto recently hosted a WNBA game on May 13, 2023. It was a pre-season game between the Chicago Sky and the Minnesota Lynx held at Scotiabank Arena. This marked the first-ever WNBA game in Canada and was part of the league’s efforts to expand its global footprint and test the market for potential Canadian expansion — a year before the Tempo franchise was announced.
The game was a significant success, with a sellout crowd of 19,800 fans, demonstrating the strong support a Toronto franchise could garner from basketball fans in Canada.
For Owusu, the Tempo sets an important example for young Canadian girls.
“I think it will have a positive impact on female athletes for sure,” she said. “It can give inspiration to young females to get into it and feel like they have a place here in Canada.”
“I wish I had that when I was younger — the same support that we have now,” Owusu added.
Tchida expresses that a WNBA team in Canada inspires her to keep pushing, knowing that opportunities are available close to home.
“As someone who dreams of playing professionally one day, it gives me hope and makes me even more determined to keep working toward that goal,” she said.
The Toronto Tempo will begin their inaugural season in 2026. The schedule is expected to be released in December 2025.