On Tuesday, the Women’s Pro Baseball League announced that Boston would be one of four cities to get a founding team. Along with New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Boston will have the opportunity to build a fanbase for professional women’s baseball and be an integral part in the movement to bring the sport to the national stage. Set to launch in 2026, the league aims to set a foundation in cities steeped in rich sports culture with loyal and passionate fans, and identified Boston as just that.

This is a trend that’s been taking place in recent years as Boston has welcomed several professional women’s sports teams: the Fleet (pro women’s hockey) in 2023, the Guard (pro women’s lacrosse) in 2025, the Banshees (pro women’s rugby) in 2025 and Legacy FC (pro women’s soccer), which is set to begin play in 2026.

Boston is the perfect city for women’s sports. And Boston has shown that it’s ready for more. 

Boston is ready for a WNBA team.

On Aug. 2, Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca agreed to a record $325 million deal with the Mohegan Tribe to relocate the Connecticut Sun to Boston. The bid, which was reportedly not presented to the WNBA Board of Governors, has stalled as it has been met with resistance from the league.

But the league should look again at all that Boston has to offer.

On Aug. 20, 2024, a sea of orange swept across TD Garden replacing the usual mass of fans decked out in green Celtics gear. In the first ever WNBA game held at TD Garden, the Connecticut Sun defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 69-61 in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,156 fans, a franchise record for Connecticut.

Then-Sun point guard and Newton, MA, native Veronica Burton said she took in the surreal full circle moment.

“Just soaking all of that energy up because I had seen the Boston fan base do that for other teams and do that for the Celtics, but then knowing that they were there for us was really special,” Burton said.

In Boston, often dubbed the “City of Champions,” a deep passion for sports is engrained at all ages and levels.

Steph Yang, the communications director for Legacy FC, said that while working to build a strong foundation for the organization, the club places increased focus on Boston’s “extraordinarily high participation in youth sports and youth soccer.”

“That’s definitely an audience that we don’t want to leave behind,” Yang said. “Those are going to be our long term, generational fans.”

The Boston Women’s Basketball Partners (BWBP) organization was formed in 2025 with the intent of bringing a WNBA team to Boston. BWBP spokesperson AJ Gerritson said the city is rich with fans ready to root for the home team.

“We have 250,000 college students who are super fans, right? So you think of all the colleges and universities we have, it’s just wild. And we’re the home of so many great rivalries with other cities that just makes so much sense,” Gerritson said.

Burton, who now plays for the Golden State Valkyries, an expansion team that just finished its first season, said the accessibility for fans to connect with women athletes sets professional women’s sports apart and fosters passionate fanbases.

“You just see such an excitement and there’s such an engagement that goes along with women’s professional sports,” Burton said. “You really get to see [athletes] firsthand and engage with them and interact with them, and the price range of tickets is typically more reasonable than that of some men’s professional leagues.”

Boston’s strong community connections are relations that these women’s sports teams are aiming to bolster and facilitate further. Yang said Legacy FC is taking this approach by working to incorporate the community’s interests, as well. 

“So instead of seeing these massive, multi-billion dollar stadiums that are fully publicly funded, maybe seeing organizations come in partnership with the city, so the city or the state gets a benefit as well [is important],” Yang said. “[The city] gets to maintain an elite facility where the community and the students get to have priority and plenty of time, while the club itself also has a beautiful ground that’s really tied into the community.”

The mission goes beyond the aspect of sport, said Gerritson, who aims for BWBP to pour back into the Boston community.

“For us, we’re not only trying to get a team in Boston, but we’re trying to create a platform that can do so many things—in terms of equity, in terms of inclusion, in terms of becoming a platform for role models, for young female athletes, for all of these reasons. That’s really the vision of us,” Gerritson said.

Rooting for the hometown team is at the core of what it means to be a Bostonian, but the opportunity has been lacking for women’s sports fans. However, fans in Boston now have a plethora of professional women’s sports teams to cheer for.

Burton said she didn’t “have as much access” to see WNBA games growing up and said the representation is invaluable.

“It’s so important that we have professional leagues in these new cities because it gives young kids something to strive for,” she said. “When young girls and young boys get to see us playing professionally in Boston, it just gives them more of an insight into what they can do.”