The WNBA has agreed a multi-year broadcast deal with Bell Media, securing nationwide coverage in Canada as the league prepares for the debut of its first non-US franchise, the Toronto Tempo.
The WNBA has signed a multi-year media rights agreement with Bell Media to broadcast games in Canada, ahead of the league’s expansion strategy and the launch of the Toronto Tempo.
The deal, which begins with the 2026 season, will see Bell Media become the official media partner of the Tempo, with coverage centred on its sports network TSN. The network will air the majority of the team’s games, alongside a broader slate of regular season fixtures and marquee events including the WNBA All-Star Game, Playoffs, Finals and Draft.
Select Tempo matchups will also be simulcast on CTV and streamed via Crave, extending the league’s reach across both linear and digital platforms.
The agreement aligns with the WNBA’s 30th season and comes just days before the Tempo tip off their inaugural campaign on 8 May, becoming the league’s first franchise based outside the United States.
Colie Edison, Chief Growth Officer at the WNBA, said: “The momentum around the WNBA in Canada is at an all-time high, and this partnership represents an important step in providing fans in Canada with unprecedented access to their favourite teams and players at a historic time of the first ever Canadian team in the WNBA.”
Bell Media positioned the deal as an extension of its basketball portfolio, with Shawn Redmond, Vice President of Bell Media Sports, adding: “With a generation of exciting new stars, the growth of the WNBA continues to be simply phenomenal. It’s an honour for TSN to showcase the country’s first WNBA team, the Toronto Tempo, for years to come.”
A growth market for the WNBA
The partnership formalises what the league has described as growing demand for women’s basketball in Canada. Viewership of the 2026 WNBA Draft on TSN increased 172% year-on-year, while recent exhibition fixtures in Toronto and Edmonton have sold out. The league also staged its first regular season game outside the US in Vancouver in 2025.
For the WNBA, the agreement provides a consistent national broadcast footprint in a market that has historically engaged with basketball through the NBA, but has lacked regular domestic access to women’s professional competition.
By tying media distribution directly to the Tempo, the league is also placing its expansion franchise at the centre of its Canadian strategy, using localised coverage to build a fanbase around a new team rather than relying solely on league-wide visibility.
The deal adds to a growing list of international media and distribution agreements for the WNBA, as the league looks to capitalise on increased visibility, a new collective bargaining agreement, and what it has described as a period of sustained commercial growth.
The 2026 WNBA regular season begins on 8 May and will run through to September, with each team playing 44 games before the Playoffs commence later that month.
