April 23, 1998
On Wednesday April 22nd, WNBA President Val Ackerman and Bob Vander Weide,
President and CEO of RDV Sports (the owners of the Orlando Magic), made the
announcement that the Orlando Magic has been granted one of the two WNBA
expansion teams starting in the 1999 season. Although the new team has not
been officially named, Orlando Illusion and Orlando Dazzle are being
mentioned as possibilities.
The WNBA will tip off its 1998 season on June 11th, welcoming this year's
expansion teams, the Washington Mystics and the Detroit Shock. This starts
the second year of the WNBA, whose tremendous success in its first season
has piqued the interest of many NBA team owners now making bids for
expansion teams.
The addition of teams in Orlando and Minnesota in '99 will raise the number
of teams to 12, from the original 8 teams in the inaugural year, and the
WNBA plans to keep expanding until all 29 NBA cities are represented.
The Orlando expansion team will be competing in the Eastern Conference with
Charlotte, Cleveland, New York, Detroit and Washington. The new team for
Minnesota will be in the Western Conference with the teams of Houston, Los
Angeles, Phoenix, Sacramento and Utah.
The addition of the expansion teams in Orlando and Minnesota are conditional
on the sale of 5,000 season tickets by September. Vander Weide and the
Magic organization don't see this as a problem at all, in light of the fact
that the WNBA averaged over 10,000 fans per game last season. The lower
than NBA prices will also help bring in a fan base, with tickets starting at
$8 and averaging $15.
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