Professional women’s basketball is coming to Nashville. Athletics Unlimited announced that it would be holding its fourth championship in Music City this February.
The AU Pro Basketball tournament will consist of 24 games at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. A total of 40 players will face off from Feb. 5 to March 2. The roster has not yet been revealed, but players from the WNBA are expected to compete.
“As mayor of a great sports city, and as father of two daughters who are both athletes and women’s sports fans, I’m excited to welcome the league and players to our city.” Mayor Freddie O’Connell said. “Having the athletes driving the AU Pro Basketball season at Municipal Auditorium is an exciting opportunity to showcase WNBA level experience and talent in Nashville.”
Future prospects
The announcement comes as Nashville is under consideration for its own WNBA team.
O’Connell has long hinted at bringing a professional women’s sports team to the city. During this year’s college basketball tournament, he told reporters that he was “still very interested” in the possibility.
More: Women’s sports bars are on the rise. Nashville’s will be a first for the South.
In April, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told ESPN that the league plans to add three more teams by 2028.
“It’s complex because you need the arena and practice facility and player housing and all the things you need, committed long-term ownership groups,” Engelbert said. “And so, the nice thing is we’re getting a lot of calls, we’re continuing to engage with cities.”
Engelbert named Nashville as a potential home for a new team, along with Philadelphia, Toronto, Portland and Denver.
Sticking points
If Nashville wants to be one of the cities chosen, it may need to invest more in training facilities, said Kara Nortman, owner and founder of the women’s soccer team Angel City SC.
“It’s a full-time job to get a team to your city in a sport like soccer or basketball,” Nortman said. “These aren’t multibillion dollar NBA teams or NFL teams that are doing many hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue with a team that’s been in place for 30 years. You’re building from scratch.”
But Nashville may already have one of the biggest things Nortman looks for in a city.
“If you have a local government who’s excited about bringing a women’s sports team to town, it’s incredibly helpful in terms of … any sort of public funding for facilities, access to facilities, awareness, and just collaborations,” Nortman said. “Women’s sports, I think, is proving to be a different thing for local government than even men’s sport sometimes because of what it stands for and what it can mean to the community and bringing different kinds of people together.”
Group and season ticket deposits for February’s championship are available now.
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