The WNBA is about to get a game-changing addition—and it's not another expansion team. Meet The Upshot League, a new women's basketball league launching May 15 that could become the developmental pipeline the WNBA has been desperately needing.
Last season, roster struggles plagued several WNBA teams. The Dallas Wings cycled through 21 different players, even resorting to an "extreme hardship" contract just to field a team. The Indiana Fever faced similar woes, with multiple season-ending injuries forcing coaches to beg for more roster spots. It was a crisis of depth that exposed a glaring gap in the league's structure.
The WNBA's new collective bargaining agreement took a step in the right direction, adding two developmental roster spots per team and expanding total rosters to 14 players. But that's just a band-aid. When injuries strike midseason, teams have few ready replacements. Why? Because there's no domestic women's basketball league running concurrently with the WNBA season. In the NBA, teams can call up players from their G League affiliates. In the WNBA, teams have had to scramble—poaching players from overseas leagues or hoping a suitable free agent is somewhere in the U.S.
Enter The Upshot League, led by commissioner Donna Orender, who served as WNBA president from 2005 to 2010. The idea sparked after Orender's unsuccessful bid to bring a WNBA expansion team to Jacksonville. (The league chose markets with existing NBA teams and arenas instead.) But after conversations with WNBA executives and coaches, Orender realized the real opportunity wasn't just another team—it was a whole new league.
"There wasn't enough jobs for the women who had this elite talent and passion to play in the WNBA," Orender told Front Office Sports. "And the WNBA also needed a place where they could go and find players much more easily."
The timing is perfect. The Upshot League will run from May to September, mirroring the 2026 WNBA season schedule. That means when a WNBA team loses a star player to injury, they won't have to scour overseas rosters or hope for a miracle. They can simply look to Upshot, where elite talent is already playing and ready to step up.
Earlier this week, Upshot announced it had secured $40 million in funding from investors that include Hall-of-Famers Cheryl Miller and Tamika Catchings—legends who know exactly what this league could mean for the future of women's basketball. With that kind of backing and a clear mission, Upshot isn't just filling a gap. It's building a bridge between college stars and the pros, and giving fans more great basketball to watch all summer long.