Michael Carter-Williams spoke with SB Nation about his plans, alongside actor Donnie Wahlberg, to do everything possible to bring a team to Boston.
It all began with a Thanksgiving conversation between Michael Carter-Williams and his mom, longtime basketball coach Mandy Carter-Zegarowski.
What if we brought a WNBA team to Boston?
Now, just a few months later, the 33-year-old former NBA player is leading the charge to bring the WNBA to Boston.
Everything came together quickly. Carter-Williams got connected with Donnie Wahlberg, a Boston-based actor and producer, and the two jointly launched the Boston Women’s Basketball Partners, a group that aims to submit an expansion bid to bring a WNBA franchise to Boston in the coming years.
For Carter-Williams, who was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2014 and played in the league for nearly a decade, investing in women’s basketball has long been a no-brainer.
“I was always kind of tapped in with women’s basketball, so I was always a supporter before it was cool, you know?” Carter-Williams told SB Nation in an exclusive conversation on Wednesday.
It’s how he was raised. His mother Mandy founded a comprehensive AAU program more than 20 years ago. That venture ultimately turned into MCW Starz, an AAU club based in South Hamilton, Massachusetts that includes 14 girls’ basketball teams.
“We’ve been involved in women’s basketball for about 12, 13 years now,” Carter-Williams said. “We always had plans and dreams and talked about how cool would it be to have a WNBA team in Boston. And then we started talking to the right people and formed a group, and one thing led to another, and you’re in a realistic position to at least put together a group that could make a run at getting a team of Boston.”
The WNBA is in the midst of a rapid and unprecedented expansion
The league included 12 teams last year and is adding a 13th, the Golden State Valkyries, ahead of the 2025 season. There are already two teams slated to join in 2026, in Toronto Tempo and Portland, and Sports Business Journal reported that Cleveland is expected to become the league’s 16th team in 2028.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said last year she’d like to get to 16 teams by 2028. But, the demand has far outpaced that initial projection. A long list of cities have expressed interest in bringing a WNBA team to town, a list that includes Charlotte, Austin, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Houston, Milwaukee, Nashville, and Detroit.
Thanks to Carter-Williams and Wahlberg, Boston is now the latest to enter the fold.
Could Carter-Williams and Wahlberg buy an existing WNBA team?
While expansion has been at the forefront of conversation, it’s not the only way a WNBA team could end up in Boston.
The Boston Women’s Basketball Partners is also open to acquiring an existing franchise, if one were up for sale, Carter-Williams confirmed to SB Nation. The most intuitive pick for that sale would be the Connecticut Sun, who are currently New England’s WNBA team but are based in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Last year, Sun players openly expressed a desire to play in Boston. After playing one sold-out game at TD Garden against the Los Angeles Sparks in August, DiJonai Carrington was blunt in expressing her desire to play in front of a bigger crowd.
“It felt great,” she said of the atmosphere at TD Garden. “It felt like what every night should feel like.”
DiJonai Carrington asked what the atmosphere was like at TD Garden:
“It felt great. It felt like what every night should feel like.” pic.twitter.com/U481e4NU2W
— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzell) August 21, 2024
Since then, Connecticut has experienced enormous turnover: head coach Stephanie White left for the Indiana Fever, Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, and Brionna Jones departed as free agents, and Carrington and Ty Harris were traded to Dallas. The only top-six player from last year’s playoff team currently on next year’s roster is Marina Mabrey, who has requested a trade (a request that Sun president Jen Rizzotti has denied).
Currently, the Mohegan Sun tribe that owns the Connecticut Sun is not interested in selling the team. Connecticut is one of the WNBA’s original franchises, and the Mohegan tribe is not interested in selling the team (nor seeing a WNBA team come to Boston). The Sun is one of only two WNBA teams who haven’t announced plans to construct their own practice facility.
Thomas, the Sun’s longtime franchise player who is currently playing in Unrivaled, a professional offseason 3-on-3 women’s basketball league in Miami, has criticized the Sun’s lack of investment in their infrastructure.
“They have everything you possibly need here,” Thomas said last month of Unrivaled’s practice facility, a few days before her decision to go to the Phoenix Mercury was announced. “They don’t really have a lot of those things in Connecticut. I’ve been trying to absorb as much knowledge as I can.”
Carter-Williams said that if the Sun were up for sale in the future, they’d be interested in purchasing the franchise.
“I think we’re open to all possibilities,” he said. “That would be great if that could happen. The main goal is to just get a team to Boston. And I think there’s many different avenues [through which] that could happen. That’s a goal — no matter what road we need to travel to get there, that’s what we want to do.”
Carter-Williams, who is from 40 minutes north of Boston, believes Boston is the perfect spot for a WNBA team.
“Boston is such a great sports town — it’s a championship city,” he said. “I just think that the amount of support that these women will receive from the people in Boston would be great.”
He also maintains that the existence of a Boston team would benefit the league as a whole, from the standpoint that it would help generate new rivalries.
“Rivalries are a huge thing in sports,” Carter-Williams said. “And, there’s no rivalry bigger than the Red Sox and the Yankees, right? Boston is always involved, the Lakers and Celtics, Boston is always involved in these big rivalries in sports, and that’s what makes them great. I think the WNBA is missing that.”
Carter-Williams wasn’t able to share specifics regarding specific venues the ownership group is exploring, but did share that he’s seen enormous support from policymakers in the state. The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn reported that Mayor Michele Wu and Governor Maura Healey have both offered their support for the bid.
“We’ve been in touch with multiple people,” Carter-Williams said. “We’ve been in touch with the city. We’ve been in touch with people regarding venues, and they’re really excited about it.”
He also believes that the WNBA will ultimately raise the number of total teams beyond the current projections of 16 franchises.
“I think people are picking up on trying to get expansion teams, kind of putting pressure on the WNBA, and I think they’re starting to have some good problems,” Carter-Williams said. “So, I think they’ll make some adjustments, and I think we’ll see expansion teams coming at a faster pace than we’ve been seeing them.”
