The 76ers and Comcast still expect to submit a bid for a Philadelphia WNBA team, a source familiar with the situation told The Inquirer on Sunday.
The Sixers making such a bid was part of a late-September PowerPoint presentation about the proposed Center City arena, a sentiment echoed by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker in a news conference that same night.
“I know you notice we don’t have a WNBA team here in the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said then. “Any of y’all ever noticed that? Y’all know y’all’s mayor don’t like that.”
At the time, a Sixers spokesperson confirmed, “We share in Mayor Parker’s desire to bring a WNBA franchise to Philadelphia and have been engaged with the league on the process. Our goal is for our new arena to serve as home to both the 76ers and a WNBA franchise.”
» READ MORE: The 76ers have struck a deal with Comcast Spectacor to stay in South Philly and abandon plans for a Center City arena
A Comcast company spokesperson also made a statement then, saying, “Comcast Spectator has supported previous efforts to bring a WNBA team to Philadelphia, and we enthusiastically support any bid to bring a franchise to our historic city.”
In recent months, the WNBA has announced expansion franchises in the Bay Area, Toronto, and Portland. The Golden State Valkyries, who are partnered with the NBA’s Warriors, will play their inaugural season this summer.
On Sunday, the source said that the plan to build a new arena in South Philly is a partnership between the Sixers and Comcast Spectacor, meaning the team will no longer be a building tenant. The Sixers organization has previously used that designation as a reason for what it deemed as issues with scheduling and resources for the team at the Wells Fargo Center.
The source added that the Sixers and Comcast also plan to partner in new ways to “revitalize” the Market East neighborhood, where the arena project was proposed.