{"id":3914,"date":"2025-08-08T20:08:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T01:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/?p=3914"},"modified":"2025-08-08T20:08:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T01:08:28","slug":"mixed-reaction-from-fans-athletes-as-the-wnba-heads-to-cleveland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/mixed-reaction-from-fans-athletes-as-the-wnba-heads-to-cleveland\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed reaction from fans, athletes as the WNBA heads to Cleveland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By Sigourney Bell, NABJ Monitor Digital<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ball is in Cleveland&#8217;s court as the WNBA prepares to return to the Rock &amp; Roll capital as the league\u2019s 16th team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The WNBA announced its plans in June to bring teams to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia for the 2028 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jen Brasdovich, senior public relations manager at Destination Cleveland, said the move will positively impact Cleveland giving residents something new to brag about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-soundcloud wp-block-embed-soundcloud\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"WNBA CLEVELAND by NABJ Monitor\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F2149782294&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=750&#038;maxwidth=500\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think it&#8217;s gonna have a huge economic impact for us. We know that our sports teams are a big economic driver for us. People travel to cities because they wanna be a part of the sports scene there,\u201d Brasdovich said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But are the players themselves interested? Indiana Fever Guard Sophie Cunnigham expressed concerns in July that cities like Detroit and Cleveland may not be all that exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Camryn Justice, News 5 sports reporter and Cleveland native, said otherwise<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201dI think that she either misspoke, didn&#8217;t think about that or is very uninformed because there is no city that will support their players the way that Cleveland does,\u201d Justice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coach Quran Robinson moved from Washington, D.C. to Cleveland and believes Clevelanders don&#8217;t discriminate with the love they give to any of their sports teams.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMe having two daughters it is always great to have an opportunity, a chance to have a visual of something that they can be that they can achieve,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And local Angel Reese fan, Jamari Daniel, already knows what he\u2019ll be doing in three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll try to get a front row seat,\u201d Daniel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the name of the new team, only time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By Sigourney Bell, NABJ Monitor Digital The ball is in Cleveland&#8217;s court as the WNBA prepares to return to the Rock &amp; Roll capital as the league\u2019s 16th team. The WNBA announced its plans in <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/mixed-reaction-from-fans-athletes-as-the-wnba-heads-to-cleveland\/\" title=\"Mixed reaction from fans, athletes as the WNBA heads to Cleveland\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[374,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community-interest","8":"category-podcasts-2022"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3914"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3920,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions\/3920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}