Women’s National Basketball Association (2000-2002)
Tombstone
Born: June 7, 1999 – WNBA expansion franchise
Folded: December 2002
First Game: May 31, 2000 (L 93-89 vs. Houston Comets)
Last Game: August 11, 2002 (L 73-70 vs. Phoenix Mercury)
WNBA Championships: None
Arena
The Rose Garden
Opened: 1995
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owner/Operator: Paul Allen
Trophy Case
WNBA Rookie of the Year
- 2001: Jackie Stiles
Background
The Portland Fire were perhaps the least distinguished of all Women’s National Basketball Association franchises. The Fire never had a winning season and folded after only three seasons. Only one other WNBA franchise, the Miami Sol (2000-2002), has had such a short lifespan.
The Fire entered the WNBA in 1999 as part of a major expansion of the three-year old league that also saw new clubs for Indianapolis, Miami and Seattle. As with all WNBA franchises at the time, the Fire were owned collectively by the league and operated by the local NBA ownership group, in this case Paul Allen’s Portland Trailblazers.
The WNBA required each of the 1999 expansion cities to secure 5,500 season. All four of the cities used the same PR strategy of recognizing local celebrities for purchasing milestone tickets. In Portland, U.S. Olympic skier Picabo Street (1,000th deposit), World Cup soccer star Tiffeny Milbrett (2,000th deposit) and Portland Trailblazers Kelvin Cato and Jermaine O’Neal (3,000th deposit) were among the local sports heroes used to market the season ticket campaign.
On The Court
Linda Hargrove was the Head Coach & General Manager of the Fire for all three seasons. She wasn’t able to get much out of the Fire. The team finished in 7th place in 2000 (10-22) and again in 2001 (11-21), Portland improved marginally to a .500 record of 16-16 in their final season of 2002.
Among the few on-court highlights for the Portland Fire was the performance of rookie guard Jackie Stiles during the team’s second season. Stiles won the Wade Trophy as the best player in women’s Division I college basketball in 2001. The Fire selected her 4th overall in the 2001 WNBA draft. She averaged 14.9 points and won the WNBA Rookie-of-the-Year award in 2001, but injuries short-circuited her career a season later. Stiles never played in the WNBA again after 2002.
Extinguished
In October 2002, the WNBA restructured its business plan. The league dropped the NBA ownership rule. The local NBA ownership groups that historically operated WNBA franchises for the league received the option to buy them outright. Most did, but in the event that an NBA owner no longer wanted to be involved with the women’s league, a new owner would need to be found, or else the WNBA franchise would fold.
Four NBA owners (Miami, Orlando, Portland and Utah) bailed at this point and the WNBA experienced its first contraction, dropping from 16 to 14 franchises during the 2002-03 offseason. Two other teams relocated as part of the upheaval. Fire owner Paul Allen, whose Trailblazers had the highest payroll and the worst reputation (the “Jailblazers”) in the NBA at the time, decided he’d had enough of the money-losing women’s team and dropped out. No new owner stepped forward and the Portland Fire shut down in December 2002.
Portland Fire Shop
In Memoriam
Fire owner Paul Allen passed away on October 15, 2018 following a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. New York Times obituary.
Links
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One Response
Didn’t the WNBA put a team on Portland to ‘replace’ the ABL’s Portland Power, with that league having recently collapsed? The Seattle Storm were created for the same reason in respect of the ABL’s Seattle Reign, although they were to have contrasting fortunes.