Expansion WNBA team brings back the original Portland Fire name
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s WNBA team stepped back in time for its new name, reintroducing the Portland Fire.
The expansion franchise, which begins play next next season along with the Toronto Tempo, announced its name and branding on Tuesday — reviving the moniker of the city’s previous WNBA team that played from 2000 to 2002.
“Our feeling is that the fire never died,” interim Fire president Clare Hamill said. “Fans have been waiting for us to come back, and we’re back with the Portland Fire.”
In addition to the name, the team has a new “Rose on Fire” logo and a color palette of red, brown, blue and pink.
Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft who died in 2018, was chairman of the original Fire and the two teams played at the Rose Garden, now the Moda Center.
The NBA owned the WNBA teams until 2002, then sold them to affiliated NBA teams or independent owners. Allen declined to buy the Fire and the team folded.
Portland was awarded a new WNBA team last September. The team is run by Raj Sports, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who also own the Portland Thorns of the National Women’s Soccer League. They paid $125 million for the WNBA franchise.
The Fire and the Thorns will share a new joint-training facility in the first such partnership between the two women’s leagues.
The Fire already have sold more than 11,000 season ticket deposits, surpassing the WNBA’s previous best. The team will play at the Moda Center, where the original Fire averaged some 8,000 fans a game.
But the launch of the team hasn’t been smooth.
Indications that the team planned to return to the Fire name were previously revealed when a local publication, the Rose Garden Report, published the team’s trademark application.
The team’s president, Inky Son, parted ways with the team late last month after less than three months on the job. Son was announced as the first employee of the team in early April, tasked with leading all aspects of the business, including marketing, ticket and sponsorship sales, and community relations.
The Toronto Tempo, meanwhile, are further along in the process, announcing a team name back in December and hiring a general manager earlier this year.
Hamill, a former Nike executive, took over for Son until a permanent president can be found. She said the launch of the team name and logo is just a slice of what the team is activating in the coming weeks. The Fire’s website also went live on Tuesday.
“We’re pointing everybody to the launch and the pace at which we’re moving, and just giving everyone confidence that we have our arms around it,” Hamill said. “We’re moving fast, and you’re going to hear from us a lot.”
The team celebrated the launch of the name and logo at a community party outside the Moda Center on Tuesday. Several hundred fans, including former WNBA players Olympia Scott and Lindsey Yamasaki, were in attendance.
“This is amazing. Look, the city showed up,” said Karina LeBlanc, the Fire’s executive vice president of strategic growth development. “This is the global epicenter of women’s sports for a reason, because our fan base and our community show up with a fire within them that’s different from anywhere else.”
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