WNBA Expansion Draft Date Set, Format Explained as Fire, Tempo Build Rosters for 2026 Season

The WNBA's two newest teams will officially start building their rosters on April 3.

On Wednesday, the WNBA announced the schedule for the expansion draft for the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo, which will take place on the same date as the Final Four of the 2026 NCAA women's basketball tournament.

ESPN will provide coverage of both.

Which players will be available will be dependent on the other 13 teams in the league who will submit a roster list to the league by March 29. Said lists will feature every player the team had rights to at the end of the 2025 regular season, and five of them can be designated as "protected players" who cannot be selected in the expansion draft.

If the Tempo or Fire select a player who has not signed a contract for the 2026 campaign, they will receive the rights the player's previous team would have had. Portland and Toronto can also each only take one "potential unrestricted free agent," which are players who have five or more years of service and completed their previous contract.

If one of the expansion teams drafts a potential unrestricted free agent, they will be the only squad that can negotiate a supermax contract even if said player cannot be designated as a core player.

"Between the time that the Roster Lists are submitted and a designated time on the day before the Expansion Draft, Portland and Toronto will be permitted to make the following trades with existing teams: (i) an agreement to select a particular player from an Unprotected List and trade that player to a team other than her existing team; and (ii) an agreement to select (or not select) a particular player from such trading team's Unprotected List," the WNBA's announcement explained.

It remains to be seen which expansion team will draft first on April 3.

Whichever team wins a coin toss on March 27 will have the right to choose between the first pick of the expansion draft or the sixth pick of the annual WNBA draft. The team that does not have the sixth pick in the April 13 draft will choose seventh.

From there, the teams will use a snake format in the expansion draft. That means the team that chooses first in the first round will choose second in the second round. As for the college draft, the team that picks sixth in the first round will choose seventh in the second round and sixth again in the third round.

That there is an expansion draft this offseason is notable since the entire schedule before the 2026 campaign is condensed following extensive negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.

The season starts on May 8 with each team scheduled to play 44 games each. In addition to the expansion draft and the college draft, there are also more than 100 free agents who have to decide their future.

Front offices have their hands full before the games actually start, and their decisions will determine the list of players the Tempo and Fire will choose.