Author
Christopher Boan is a writer at OntarioBets.com. He's covered sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
How Long Does It Take A New WNBA Team To Win A Championship?
This is the last season before the Canadian WNBA expansion team – Toronto Tempo – will hit the court. Using Basketball-Reference.com, OntarioBets.com found the average record in the first season for WNBA expansion teams, the average number of seasons it took them to make playoffs, and the average of years. This accounts for all current teams, to set some expectations for the Toronto team and for Ontario sports betting on the team.
Toronto Tempo: How Long Will It Take For Success?
Avg. First Season Record | Avg. No. Years Until Playoffs | Avg. No. Years Until Championship Win |
.356 | 2 | 9 |
The data above includes all current teams for their average first-year record and average number of years until they reached the playoffs. The championship data includes only current teams that have won at least one title (this excludes the Atlanta Dream and the Connecticut Sun). The statistics use total franchise data, and not just where the team is now or its current nickname.
Check out our deep dive into first seasons for WNBA expansion teams at OntarioBets.com.
Dating to the league’s first round of expansion in 1998, the opening season data for those teams has been anything but pretty, as one might expect. Fledgling WNBA franchises have posted an average first season winning percentage of .356 out of the gate. This season, the league is expanding its schedule to 44 games, so the closest a team could come to the average would be a 16-28 mark, or a .364 winning percentage.
The teams that entered the WNBA between 1998 and 2008 usually hit their stride in the second season, which is when those franchises made the postseason for the first time, on average. The road to a WNBA title took a bit longer, with clubs averaging nine years in the league before hosting the hardware at season’s end.
How Long Could It Take Toronto To Succeed in WNBA?
We’ll get another data point in the WNBA’s expansion history book this season, as the Golden State Valkyries enter the league as the 13th team. It appears that no one is expecting an overnight success story in the Bay Area – at NorthStar Bets Ontario Sportsbook, the expansion club is dead last on the WNBA title odds board, at +25000 as of April 15.
Come this time next year, the first WNBA club north of the border will look to turn the tide on the league’s expansion team malaise. The Toronto Tempo (including general manager Monica Wright Rogers, above) will be trying to use the next 12 months to build a championship-caliber roster and staff ahead of the team’s debut next spring.
For now, what we can say is that the odds will be stacked against the Tempo doing much of anything during the club’s debut season in 2026. WNBA data tells us that, like most newcomers in pro sports, expansion teams have faced their fair share of adversity in Year 1 before starting to turn the corner.
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USA Today photo by Kevin Sousa
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