{"id":66051,"date":"2024-03-05T11:05:14","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T16:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=66051"},"modified":"2024-03-05T15:28:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T20:28:31","slug":"wnba-raptors-vp-teresa-resch-poised-lead-new-franchise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/05\/wnba-raptors-vp-teresa-resch-poised-lead-new-franchise\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Raptors VP Poised to Help Lead New WNBA Franchise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Toronto Raptors vice president of basketball operations and player development Teresa Resch is set to help lead a new WNBA franchise out of Toronto, per CBC Sports\u2019 Shireen. With Raptors minority owner and billionaire Larry Tanenbaum bidding for the proposed expansion franchise, \u201can announcement could come<\/a> as soon as May.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teresa Resch Set to Help Lead WNBA Expansion Franchise<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s no clarity on exactly what role Teresa Resch will have with the proposed WNBA expansion franchise. However, she stepped down from her role with the Raptors last Friday. According to the Toronto Star\u2019s Doug Smith, Resch made the decision in order \u201cto seek other professional opportunities<\/a>.\u201d She had been with the franchise since 2023.<\/p>\n

WNBA Expansion Expected by 2025<\/h3>\n

Like the NBA<\/a>, the WNBA has long been discussing expansion. A move that not only would allow the league to grow but interest in it, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has already shortlisted<\/a> a handful of potential host cities.<\/p>\n

Chief among them was the Bay Area. In October, the WNBA awarded its 13th franchise<\/a> to the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. It is the W\u2019s first expansion team since 2008. The move also made Golden State the sixth NBA franchise with a WNBA team.<\/p>\n

The Bay Area is home to one of the most successful franchises<\/a> in the Warriors, signifying the area\u2019s potential interest in and support of a professional women\u2019s basketball team.<\/p>\n

Engelbert has also lamented the fact there\u2019s no WNBA team in the Bay Area, despite the success of the Stanford Cardinals women\u2019s basketball team. To that point, bringing a new team to the Bay allows them to right one of the wrongs of WNBA history: the dissolution of the Sacramento Monarchs. One of the W\u2019s original teams, the Monarchs\u2019 fate was out of anyone\u2019s control, as they were victimized by the Global Economic Crisis.<\/p>\n

Toronto Enters the Chat<\/h3>\n

Toronto also figured to be quite high on the list of preferred host cities.<\/p>\n

Like the Bay Area, the location has a popular NBA franchise in the Toronto Raptors. However, there\u2019s never been a WNBA team in the Toronto area. In fact, the W has never had a franchise team in any of Canada\u2019s 10 provinces.<\/p>\n

That Toronto is even in position to make the bid may be a stroke of luck though. Last fall, the W deferred Portland\u2019s bid for a WNBA franchise due to potential arena renovations. Nothing was set in stone. Nonetheless, Portland \u201cwas believed to be well on its way<\/a> to joining Golden State as an expansion franchise,\u201d per ESPN\u2019s Alexa Philippou.<\/p>\n

Months later, Toronto appears poised to become the 14th franchise that Engelbert envisioned joining the WNBA by 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Toronto Raptors vice president of basketball operations and player development Teresa Resch is set to help lead a new WNBA franchise out of Toronto, per CBC Sports\u2019 Shireen. With Raptors minority owner and billionaire Larry Tanenbaum bidding for the proposed expansion franchise, \u201can announcement could come as soon as May.\u201d Teresa Resch Set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":66110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,3],"tags":[1632],"class_list":["post-66051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-wnba"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}