PWHL expanding to Las Vegas for 2026-27 season, adding 10th franchise

The Aces have become a dynasty franchise in Vegas, winning three league titles in four years. In March, the team announced it was the first in WNBA history to sell out season ticket allotments for three consecutive seasons. The Aces play at Michelob ULTRA Arena and have drawn big crowds for select games hosted at T-Mobile. In July 2024, the Aces played against Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever in front of 20,366 fans — the largest regular season crowd at a WNBA game since 1999.

Vegas has also become a premier destination for NHL players, which was on display yet again this summer when the Golden Knights landed Mitch Marner in a sign-and-trade with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs.

“Players don’t want to leave,” Foley said in a July interview with The Athletic’s Jesse Granger. “Once they get here, and they see our facilities and where we play, and they see the way we take care of our players, scouts and coaches, and how everyone is all in, they don’t want to leave.”

PWHL Las Vegas and Detroit will join the original six markets of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York and Minnesota and the league’s first expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver.

San Jose, Calif., and Hamilton, Ont., have also emerged in recent weeks as two of the league’s other prime options to reach 12 teams for next season, according to chatter in league circles.

Teams in Las Vegas and another western market, along with another in the east, would make the league more geographically balanced, potentially placing four franchises in the West, two in the Midwest (Detroit and Minnesota) and six in the East. Having that kind of footprint might also allow the PWHL to split into two conferences and potentially four divisions; PWHL executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer told the Associated Press the league is exploring the idea.

Selecting expansion markets has been a fluid process for league executives, who have spent months working through the available options.

“There is a line of cities eager to have us there, whether it’s for a couple Takeover Tour games or for a full-time team,” Stan Kasten, the president of the MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers and a PWHL advisory board member, said last month. “We’re going to have news about that in the next few weeks.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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