Toronto rolls out welcome mat for WNBA's first Canada game

The sold-out pre-season game played at the home of the NBA's Toronto Raptors

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) held a game in Canada for the first time on Saturday in what amounted to a celebration of women's basketball while perhaps planting the seeds for an expansion franchise.

The sold-out pre-season game played at the home of the NBA's Toronto Raptors offered the latest sign that there is a growing appetite in Canada's biggest city and financial capital for professional women's basketball.

The game aired live on three networks across Canada and the United States, featured an all-women, all-Canadian team for the broadcast and prompted the city to proclaim May 13 as "Welcome WNBA Day" to mark the occasion.

"So excited to be here in Toronto, this is a seminal moment for this league," WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said before the Chicago Sky played the Minnesota Lynx. "We are thrilled with the reception."

In the days leading up to the game, a 12-foot tall sculpture of the WNBA's logo -- a player going toward the basket with her hair in a bun -- was set up at different locations in downtown Toronto, including inside the arena on Saturday.

Fans took photos with the sculpture and were encouraged to sign the orange fiberglass shell which stood atop a two-tiered circular white base that read: "Together we're making history. Signed, Toronto."

The WNBA, celebrating its 27th season, has garnered plenty of interest in Canada where it says average regular season viewership increased 95% over the last three years along with jumps in merchandise sales and social media engagement.

"These are all key markers of fans that are looking to deepen their engagement with the (WNBA) property," said Leah MacNab, NBA Canada's senior vice president.

The WNBA has held games outside the United States twice before but unlike the one-off events held in Mexico (2004) and England (2011) but the Toronto exhibition could very well be the first step toward a permanent team in the city.

With many players falling through the cracks in a 12-team draft each year it forces some to head overseas to play given the lack of available space in the longest-running women's professional sports league in North America.

The WNBA last expanded in 2008 with the addition of the Atlanta Dream, and Engelbert has been open about wanting to add more franchises, potentially by the start of the 2025 season.

Engelbert said the WNBA began looking at 100 cities across Canada and the United States about 18 months ago for potential expansion opportunities and that Toronto "scored really well" and is on the short list of about 10 cities.

"Toronto is very high on the list," said Engelbert. "So Toronto is definitely on the list, but we'll continue to work on that through the season and hopefully have something to announce later."

"As we embark on this transformation, and we are well into right now, I think the time for expansion is ripe and ready right now."