Crossover Monday: Breaking ground on the new NWSL/WNBA training center in Portland
The IX: Soccer Monday with Annie Peterson, April 28, 2025
A WNBA-NWSL collaboration? Not to step on Howard Megdal’s Basketball Wednesdays, but who doesn’t like a good collab?
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As the WNBA opens preseason training camps for the 2025 season, the owners of Portland’s WNBA expansion team for 2026 have been busy preparing for their launch. Because the owners, the Bhathal family, also own the Portland Thorns, there has been some crossover — most notably the $150 million training center that will serve both teams.
Alex Bhathal and Lisa Bhathal Merage, along with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman, among others, broke ground on the new facility on Tuesday.
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While we’ve posted about the facility before, here are a few more details: It is located in Hillsboro, Oregon, west of Portland. The owners are repurposing some empty office buildings formerly owned by Nike.
The center will include two full-size soccer fields, an outdoor training area and a gym that will house basketball courts. The most important aspect of the facility is that it is being purposely built for women, so it will include things like a family room for players with kids.
Berman said the idea of a joint center just makes sense, which is why the league has embraced the project. “Certainly there are both strategic and tactical investments that can be made that can be leveraged for both properties that wouldn’t have to be duplicated,” she said.
The situation in Portland is unique with shared ownership, but Berman said she wouldn’t rule out future collaborations with the WNBA that center women, where it makes sense, and where there are growth opportunities.
Wyden is the ultimate hype man for anything Oregon. Here you can see him speak, along with some of the others at the event. And the back of my head!
A Division II league coming?
Kudos to CBS Sports’ Pardeep Cattry for breaking the news that the NWSL has applied with U.S. Soccer for a Division II league.
If sanctioned, a possible eight-team league would sit on the second tier of the U.S. soccer pyramid, below the NWSL and the USL Women’s Super League, and would serve to develop young players. It could launch as early as 2026.
“As a global leader in the women’s soccer landscape both on and off the pitch, the NWSL and its member clubs are committed to growing our sport in meaningful ways,” the league said in a statement. “The demand for professional soccer has never been higher. We look forward to working to build a strong foundation for future generations of players, officials and coaches and ensure the continued advancement of the women’s game.”
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U.S. Soccer has conditions for Division II sanctioning, including a minimum of six teams and stadiums that seat at least 2,000 fans. In the case of the NWSL, all of the lower-division teams would be affiliated with top-tier clubs, sharing ownership and infrastructure.
Links
Kansas City Current lose for the first time this season.
The Athletic looks at what an NWSL Division II would mean for women’s soccer.
Jrue and Lauren Holiday join ownership group of the NC Courage. Lauren will take on an advisory role with the club.
The NWSL is embracing rivalries.
Women’s football in Egypt is on the rise.
ESPN details how African players have raised the bar in the NWSL.
Colorado Sun looks at possible economic impact of the Denver NWSL team.
Story from USA Today on Gals FC, an inclusive soccer program.
Almuth Schult believes her career ended early because clubs were reluctant to sign children.
Ian Wright steps up to fund a player’s ACL recovery after club refused.
Bay FC will play a match at Oracle Park.
Arsenal reaches Champions League final.
World Sevens Football announces teams for its first tournament.
Five at The IX: Lisa Bhathal Merage talks training center and more
I got a chance to catch up with Lisa Bhathal Merage, owner of the Portland Thorns and WNBA Portland, at the groundbreaking. Here’s what she said:
Annie Peterson: What does today mean to you?
Lisa Bhathal Merage: Today for us is groundbreaking, literally and figuratively, because it is about moving forward and cementing Portland as a global epicenter for women’s sports. I think this performance center will be changing the dynamic for women’s sports for generations to come. It’s the first dual-purpose, professional women’s sport performance center in the world. And we may not see any others after this, but our view is to collaborate, involve the community and really lift up everybody by that collaboration.
Peterson: I’ve always kind of been curious: When you bought the Thorns, did you intend to also buy into a WNBA team?
Bhathal Merage: Buying a WNBA team was not on our radar at the time, but when we were in the process of closing the Thorns, we heard about what was happening and how with the previous potential owner, it fell through. And with our deep-seated relationships in the NBA, we reached out and let them know that we were in the process of closing and purchasing the Portland Thorns, and what we were doing and looking to build here in Portland, and they were interested in our throwing a hat in the ring, and luckily it all came to fruition. I think the stars aligned. And for us, we definitely doubled down in Portland. But the fans and the supporters are really the reason Portland is like no other city.
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Peterson: I think a lot of people are interested in when are you going to have a team name?
Bhathal Merage: We hired on Inky Son [as team president], who’s here today. And that was our first step. We were very, very thoughtful and careful with our search. It took a little bit longer than we had expected to land on finding the right person for the job. …
We have been working on the team name, but I’ll tell you, it’s kind of like being able to select a name for your child, but then somebody tells you, ‘No, you can’t have that name. And you can’t have that name either, because it’s very difficult to get the IP and get the trademark.’ So we’ve gone through a lot of different names. We’ve used the sources that a lot of you have helped out with, with crowdsourcing. … We’ve literally compiled every single comment from every single person into a massive spreadsheet and rank them in order of how popular they were. And we’ve worked with the WNBA on all of those names. So we are getting closer. We’re waiting for final league approval, and hopefully within the next two, maximum three, months, we’ll be able to unveil everything.
Peterson: [Former Thorns general manager] Karina LeBlanc had talked about how you were very involved with the design of this and making it a women-centric space. I wanted to get your thoughts on creating this facility and why it was important to you to include those elements.
Bhathal Merage: Thank you for asking that because I sat in a … big conference room with one other woman and questioned, ‘Why do we do things a certain way? Is it because it’s always been done this way in the men’s world?’ Because we need to be looking through a different lens about what women want.
So for us, you’ll see different elements as this thing comes to fruition with regard to a spa-type feel in the recovery areas, having some private changing areas that men don’t have. But as women, we like sometimes having that privacy. I had a meeting with Populous [a design firm] a few weeks ago and I’m going back there today, and I’ve been involved in hand-selecting literally every finished carpet tile to make it through the female lens of how we interact, how we look at things [and] what we want to see.
| Mondays: Soccer |
| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
| Wednesdays: Basketball |
| By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The Next |
| Thursdays: Golf |
| By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX |
| Fridays: Hockey |
| By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden |
| Saturdays: Gymnastics |
| By: Lela Moore, @runlelarun, Freelance Writer |
