A WNBA team back in Charlotte? Dawn Staley thinks it could work
As attention around women’s basketball continues to grow, calls for the WNBA to expand have only gotten louder.
Late last month a group in Nashville submitted a bid to bring a WNBA franchise — aptly named after the late Pat Summitt — to the Music City. And earlier this week Hornets Sports & Entertainment put out a statement backing a bid to bring a WNBA franchise back to Charlotte.
The bid in the Queen City would be an attempt to revive the Charlotte Sting, one of the WNBA’s original eight teams.
South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley was one of the stars of the Sting during her playing days. She played seven seasons in Charlotte from 1999-2005 and was a four-time WNBA All-Star, averaging 8.9 points and 5.4 assists per game. For most of her WNBA career in Charlotte, she also served as the head basketball coach at Temple.
Ever the champion for women’s basketball, Staley said she supports bringing a WNBA franchise to Charlotte while speaking to the media Wednesday.
“I think if we brought the W back to Charlotte, there’s a lot more movement when it comes to women’s basketball that I do think it will work,” Staley said.
Columbia is about a 90-minute drive to Charlotte on a good day. That, combined with the 25,000 USC alumni in the city, leads Staley to believe attendance and support wouldn’t be an issue for a Charlotte franchise.
“The attendance will be there,” Staley said. “At this stage of the game you have to pour money into even getting a franchise. So the money is going to be there, to market, to put the product on the floor that all of these Gamecock fans have been longing for. We have too many players in the league for us not to be season ticket holders.”
Staley herself said she’s a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Dream because that’s the closest WNBA franchise to Columbia and gives her an opportunity to see her former players when they’re in town for a game. The drive to Charlotte is much closer though, which Staley joked would “bode much better for my lifestyle”, making her believe South Carolina fans could make up “thousands and thousands” of potential season ticket holders for a new version of the Sting.
Several different things need to happen before the Sting could make a comeback, but Staley went ahead and jumped ahead of any speculation that she’d be a candidate to coach the team:
“No,” she said laughing.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 4:27 PM.
