Detroit — It’s official: Detroit is getting its WNBA team.
The WNBA announced Thursday night that its Board of Governors has formally approved previously announced expansion teams for Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia.
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The WNBA announced in June 2025 its intention to set up shop in each of those cities. Cleveland will begin play in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030.
Shock assistant coach Rick Mahorn, from left, Deanna Nolan and head coach Bill Laimbeer celebrate their victory as the Detroit Shock defeated the Sacramento Monarchs in Game 5 of the 2006 WNBA Finals. It was the Shock’s second of three WNBA titles.
Detroit’s WNBA team will play its home games at Little Caesars Arena — the third full-time tenant of the building, joining the Pistons and Red Wings — and is expected to have its own standalone practice facility.
This marks a return of the WNBA to Michigan. The Detroit Shock played at The Palace of Auburn Hills from 1998-2009, winning three championships, in 2003, 2006 and 2008, under head coach (and former Pistons “Bad Boy” Bill Laimbeer). The team then was sold and moved to Tulsa, Okla., after longtime Pistons and Palace owner Bill Davidson died in 2009, and the franchise now is the Dallas Wings.
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Detroit’s new WNBA team, which has yet to announce a nickname (the Shock remains a possibility, but not a formality), is to be owned by a group of investors led by Pistons owner Tom Gores and wife Holly. The ownership group includes several high-profile investors, including Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp and husband Steve, General Motors CEO Mary Barry and husband, Lions quarterback Jared Goff and wife Christen, former Piston and NBA Hall-of-Famer Grant Hill and wife Tamia, and Fab Five legend Chris Webber, among several others.
Little Caesars Arena is expected to undergo millions in renovations to add in locker-room facilities for the new WNBA team, and a 75,000-square-foot practice facility (along with a 100-square-foot youth sports facility) is planned for east Detroit, near the Belle Isle bridge.
The WNBA, which launched in 1996, has 15 teams, and will expand to 18 by 2030, amid the recent spike in popularity of the sports, with the emergence of star players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers.
The WNBA and the Players Association recently agreed on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will see team salary caps rise to $7 million in 2026, from $1.5 million in 2025. Average salaries will approach $600,000.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: WNBA formally OKs Detroit franchise. Where will they play, and when?
