Enlargement WNBA crew brings again the unique Portland Fireplace identify

Oregon’s WNBA crew stepped again in time for its new identify, re-introducing the Portland Fireplace. The WNBA growth franchise, which begins play subsequent subsequent season together with the Toronto Tempo, introduced its identify and branding on Tuesday — reviving the moniker of town’s earlier WNBA crew that performed from 2000 to 2002.

“Our feeling is that the hearth by no means died,” interim Fireplace president Clare Hamill stated. “Followers have been ready for us to return again, and we’re again with the Portland Fireplace.”

Along with the identify, the crew has a brand new “Rose on Fireplace” emblem and a colour palette of purple, brown, blue and pink.

Portland Path Blazers proprietor Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft who handed away in 2018, was chairman of the unique Fireplace and the 2 groups performed on the Rose Backyard, now the Moda Heart.

The NBA owned the WNBA groups till 2002, then bought them to affiliated NBA groups or unbiased homeowners. Allen declined to purchase the Fireplace and the crew folded.

Portland was awarded a brand new WNBA crew final September. The crew is run by Raj Sports activities, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who additionally personal the Portland Thorns of the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League. They paid $125 million for the WNBA franchise.

The Fireplace and the Thorns will share a brand new joint-training facility within the first such partnership between the 2 girls’s leagues.

The Fireplace have already bought greater than 11,000 season tickets, surpassing the WNBA’s earlier greatest. The crew will play on the Moda Heart, the place the unique Fireplace averaged some 8,000 followers a recreation.

However the launch of the crew hasn’t been clean.

Indications that the crew deliberate to return to the Fireplace identify have been beforehand revealed when a neighborhood publication, the Rose Backyard Report, revealed the crew’s trademark software.

The crew’s president, Inky Son, parted methods with the crew late final month after lower than three months on the job. Son was introduced as the primary worker of the crew in early April, tasked with main all elements of the enterprise, together with advertising and marketing, ticket and sponsorship gross sales, and group relations.

The Toronto Tempo, in the meantime, introduced a crew identify again in December and have already employed a normal supervisor.

Hamill, a former Nike government, took over for Son till a everlasting president will be discovered. She stated the launch of the crew identify and emblem is only a slice of what the crew is activating on Tuesday.

“We’re pointing all people to the launch and the tempo at which we’re transferring, and simply giving everybody confidence that we’ve our arms round it,” Hamill stated. “We’re transferring quick, and you are going to hear from us quite a bit.”

The crew deliberate to have fun the identify and emblem launch with a group occasion on Tuesday afternoon on the Moda Heart.

Portland and Toronto start play in 2026, however the growth Golden State Valkyries joined the WNBA for the 2025 season. There are additionally three extra introduced growth groups within the WNBA’s future: Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. These three groups will likely be launched one yr at a time, in 2028, 2029 and 2030, respectively. 

The Related Press contributed to this report.

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