05.22.2026
One of the perks of investing nearly $150 million in Canada’s first WNBA team is that it grants you a private tour of the century-old Coca-Cola Coliseum, an 8,000-plus seat arena in downtown Toronto originally built for agriculture fairs that has since morphed into a charming hockey barn for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies, the PWHL’s Toronto Sceptres and the building’s latest tenant, the WNBA’s Toronto Tempo.
So, about a month prior to the Tempo’s inaugural regular-season game and four days before a public kickoff rally at the arena, owners Larry and Judy Tanenbaum had Coca-Cola Coliseum essentially to themselves. In the solitude of a near-empty arena, the Tanenbaums were given an hourlong tour of the facility, including where they would enter the coliseum and the best path to the family’s seats for games. They marveled at the team’s state-of-the-art locker room and, finally, the arena’s showstopper: the gleaming basketball floor draped in the squad’s colors, Borealis Blue and Tempo Bordeaux.
Those who were with them said the Tanenbaums sat in their seats and breathed in the moment.
“What really brought everything to life was when my wife and I went to the Coca-Cola Coliseum to see exactly what everyone saw a bit later, the unveiling of our floor,” Larry Tanenbaum told Sports Business Journal. “We put about $25 million into helping to restore the Coca-Cola Coliseum to make it ready for our young women. I’ve been to that arena so many times, because our Toronto Marlies play in the arena. But this was different. This was the dream coming to life.”
It takes a village to build a professional basketball team, but having a billionaire with a deep love of sports and a history of successful ownership makes the village possible.
The overall investment from the Tanenbaums for the WNBA’s 14th franchise includes the $50 million expansion fee as well as a nine-figure commitment to build a world-class training center near Coca-Cola Coliseum that will be the first WNBA facility in North America to include dedicated community access and programming. The performance center will also house the team’s basketball operations and business staff, and is scheduled for completion in 2028. As part of a deal with the city of Toronto, the Tempo organization will fully fund the new center. (Larry said Judy is also a shareholder in the team, independent of her husband — the first time Judy has financially invested in one of Larry’s sports franchises.)
The Tempo enjoyed their first win on May 13 with a rousing victory over the Seattle Storm in front of 8,210 fans, the second consecutive sellout after the franchise’s inaugural game against the Washington Mystics. But it was a mad dash, organizationally, to get there.
CBA negotiations between the WNBA and WNBPA didn’t conclude until late April, prompting an intense amount of basketball business to be done in a wildly short period. Between April 3 and opening night on May 8, the Tempo participated in the league’s expansion draft, the WNBA draft, the free-agency period, training camp, the team’s first media day and sponsorship activations — before finally getting to lace up sneakers for the 2026 season.
“Opening night was a movie,” Tempo President Teresa Resch said. “I was so proud of the staff for getting to that point, and it was a minor miracle that it happened. I think after each milestone, you feel this incredible sense of accomplishment and a connection with the people who were in the trenches with you. But then you know there’s more milestones to go.”
National pride
So how did the Tempo get here? Three years ago, Scotiabank Arena hosted the first WNBA game in Canada, a preseason meeting between the Minnesota Lynx and the Chicago Sky, and the 19,800 tickets sold out within minutes of going on sale. The passion for women’s basketball had a massive impact on WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and other league officials who were in attendance and considering the city for a bid.
A year after that 2023 exhibition game, on May 23, 2024, the WNBA announced that it would be expanding to Toronto for the league’s first franchise outside the United States. The decision reflected the fast-growing basketball culture in Canada, a sports-obsessed country of 41 million that has expanded well beyond a fervor for hockey.
If you talk to the Tempo’s C-suite executives, they consistently preach that the Tempo are not just Toronto’s team, but represent an entire country. The data also guides them. The WNBA said more than 2.6 million Canadians tuned into a live WNBA game during the 2025 season, and according to Ashton Lawrence, a director of communications for the WNBA based in Toronto, WNBA League Pass live viewers in Canada increased 115% year over year.
Said Engelbert: “Larry’s vision was to make sure this wasn’t just Toronto’s team. It was Canada’s team, as a way to grow scale.”
Things are moving fast. The Tempo have 63 employees — that number was just five on Jan. 1, 2025 — and they continue to hire. Resch, who previously worked in the Toronto Raptors’ front office, speaks often of the Tempo’s core values: integrity, growth and joy.
As the Tempo’s chief revenue officer, Lisa Ferkul is charged with producing revenue in a way that stays true to those values. A former chief commercial officer at Golf Canada and Scotiabank executive, Ferkul has oversight over the two primary commercial revenue streams for the business, sponsorship and ticketing. Hired in August 2024 — she is employee No. 3, as Patrick Lee, the Tempo’s chief financial officer, and Resch were hired a couple of months earlier — Ferkul said the goal is to be at the top of the WNBA among revenue generation, and the franchise is tracking as one of the highest partnership-revenue-generating teams in the league in its first season.
“I would say that from the outset, corporate Canada has been incredibly passionate and enthusiastic about Canada’s first WNBA team,” Ferkul said. “I had no shortage of meetings when I first signed on.”
To that end, Sephora Canada and CIBC became the founding corporate partners for the organization, each signing a multiyear deal. The companies’ logos are featured prominently on the Tempo jerseys and throughout Coca-Cola Coliseum. Ferkul said the brands are investing significant dollars in the team and providing community activations.
The franchise had 17 inaugural partners for tipoff — sponsors that obtained category exclusivity and official partner status for use of the Tempo’s IP across the country. Those brands include TurboTax, Instacart and Tampax, among others. FanDuel signed on as the team’s first sportsbook and casino partner.
Ferkul cited the thesis of “fewer, bigger and better” as a commercial strategy for sponsors. While she would not disclose what the sponsors are paying, Ferkul said the Tempo held firm on the financials and did not discount their sponsorship packages.
Notably, the franchise is the only WNBA team to have four home arenas this season: Coca-Cola Coliseum (15 games), Scotiabank Arena (three games), the Bell Centre in Montreal (two games) and Rogers Arena in Vancouver (two games). The team plans to play some of its regular-season games outside of Toronto every year.
“Being Canada’s team means a few things,” Ferkul said. “One is being accessible to Canadians. It’s not by accident that we’re playing regular-season games in Vancouver and Montreal and then the three upsized games in Toronto at Scotiabank Arena.
“I often lead with saying we are Canada’s team, and here’s an opportunity to engage millions of fans. You rarely hear us refer to ourselves in media or speaking engagements as the Toronto Tempo. We are the Tempo. We are Canada’s team. We want Vancouver citizens and Montreal fans to feel like we are their team when we’re playing in those markets.”
Ferkul and Resch said the franchise’s goal was to have 65% of seats at Coca-Cola Coliseum held by season-ticket holders, and they hit that target: About 5,150 seats in the arena are under full season-ticket memberships.
Organizationally, Tempo management sees holding games in Montreal and Vancouver and at Scotiabank — venues with a capacity of 20,000-plus — as driving new fans to sample the product.
“We have a good opportunity to be at the top, or close to the top, of the league for sponsorships,” Lee said. “We expect to be at the top or close on our local broadcast deal, and a lot of that is driven by our strategy of having games across the country. From a ticketing perspective, our constraint will be the capacity. We play many of our games at Coca-Cola versus, say, the [Golden State] Valkyries, who play in [an 18,064-seat Chase Center]. So the comparison there isn’t really total tickets sold or total gate, because we’re working in different capacities. But what we would like to see is high sell-through rates and growth overall year over year.”
Win-now mode
Whitney Bell, the team’s chief marketing officer, oversees content areas as well as merchandise and game presentation. (The Tempo’s mascot is expected to be announced over the summer.) Prior to the roster being assembled, Bell had to build a brand without an on-court product, so the organization leaned into community.
It introduced “Tempo Rising,” a women’s coaching mentorship program investing in the next generation of leaders in the game. And in March, the organization launched “Tempo Impact,” a long-term platform dedicated to advancing the health and well-being of girls and women across Canada.
“When we were naming the team, the fact that it could be translated into French was really important to us,” Bell said. (Both English and French are official languages of Canada.) “We thought about how it would be when we are in [French-speaking] Quebec, and we held events in 2025 in Vancouver and in Montreal to build our connections in those cities.”
Bell said her department has tracked media stories about the franchise since 2025. Last year, their data showed that the Tempo were mentioned in 15,496 news articles. Those numbers have ballooned: This April alone saw the franchise mentioned in 13,280 news pieces.
Tanenbaum made it clear to his basketball operations staff that he wanted the team to be competitive in Year 1, and the roster reflects that.
Tempo General Manager Monica Wright Rogers scored a huge coup with the hiring of Sandy Brondello, a two-time WNBA champion as a head coach. (Brondello told SBJ she likely would not have accepted the job had the franchise decided to punt on being competitive this season and opt for a longer timeline.) Also, the team made veterans Brittney Sykes and Marina Mabrey the WNBA’s first million-dollar backcourt, and invested heavily in an analytically inclined basketball department.
Said Tanenbaum, with a smile: “I told Monica that I don’t want to have the No. 1 pick here next year.” (Having the No. 1 pick might not be the worst thing for long-term success if USC star guard JuJu Watkins enters the 2027 draft, but we digress.)
Resch said the team’s broadcast deal was its most consequential piece of the business, outside of the league’s CBA, because of what it means for commercial viability. Last month, the league announced that Bell Media will be the official media partner of the franchise. As part of a multiyear deal, Bell Media’s TSN (and sometimes CTV and Crave) will broadcast and stream Tempo games, as well as the WNBA’s postseason, finals, draft and all-star game.
It’s a true countrywide package: Bell properties can air any WNBA games that do not fall under Prime Video’s exclusivity in Canada. Under the arrangement, the Tempo are compensated for the team’s local rights.
“We shared with the league that we wanted to prioritize every game being on linear,” Resch said. “It was also important for us to have a broadcaster who was going to promote the product. What’s unique here is that the team itself did not have a lot of input in the actual deal, because the deal was done between the broadcaster and the league, given the deal is for all of Canadian rights and not just the Tempo rights.”
Resch said she thinks often about what the fan base wants this year, and it depends on their level of WNBA fandom. Anecdotally, she said there are Tempo fans who are simply excited about a WNBA team existing in Canada, but there are others more steeped in the WNBA who want to win now.
“In general, there’s been a lot of grace given to us because we’re an expansion team,” Resch said. “But that doesn’t mean we rest on our laurels. I do know one thing: Everybody wants a winner. The more we can win, the more fans will love us even more.”
The owner echoes that sentiment. This debut season is going to be a mixture of honeymoon, challenges and learning to fly the plane as they build it.
“Where would we like to be five years from now? Well, I know where I would like to be: on the podium holding that ‘W’ trophy,” Tanenbaum said. “I know this franchise is going to be terrific and grow every year. You don’t win championships every year for sure, but competing for championships — you can do that every year. That’s where we want to take the team and this organization. We want to be a model franchise — and I believe we will.”
Source: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/05/22/dream-team-the-toronto-tempo-embody-larry-tanenbaums-vision-and-represent-all-of-canada-and-its-wnba-hopes/