From left to right: African American Sports & Entertainment Group (AASEG) partners Shonda Scott, Ray Bobbitt, and Alan Dones (NAME CQ'D) pose for a portrait at the Oakland Coliseum on Thursday, August 26, 2021, in Oakland, Calif.
Yalonda M. James, Staff / The ChronicleThe WNBA didn’t achieve its goal of announcing expansion clubs by the end of 2022. That timeline is still muddied, but the Oakland-based bid has made significant progress to stay in the running.
The African American Sports & Entertainment Group, a collective trying to bring a franchise to Oakland, led by entrepreneurs like Ray Bobbitt and NBA agent Bill Duffy with former WNBA player Alana Beard as its frontwoman, has been prominent in its efforts for the past two years.
That group is at the “final stages” of its proposal for the league, according to Bobbitt.
“We’re closer than we’ve ever been,” he said. “Everybody is really motivated and excited.”
A group called “Bring the WNBA to Oakland” has been seeking 20,000 signatures — as many seats as Oakland Arena holds — on an online petition. That could turn into a full-fledged season-ticket drive to show tangible numbers and a committed audience out of a fan group that developed organically.
The AASEG bid will come down to its ability to cut a deal for 50% of the 155-acre site that houses Oakland Arena and the Coliseum; the city entered exclusive negotiations with the group in November 2021 to purchase or lease its portion of the property. The A’s are in the process of purchasing Alameda County’s half of the site. In July 2021, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority’s board unanimously approved a term sheet from AASEG to bring the WNBA to Oakland.
In September, Oakland Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan introduced a resolution urging the WNBA to approve Oakland as an expansion team. Having the community backing, in addition to infrastructure of an arena and accessible transit, are all potential marks for the Oakland bid.
Joe Lacob and the Golden State Warriors are heading the effort for a team to be brought to San Francisco, at Chase Center. The WNBA has said having NBA ownership wouldn’t necessarily give an edge to a bid, but the power of the Warriors and their world-class facility is still a perk.
“As we have stated for a quite some time, we’d be interested in a team when the time and economics are right,” a Warriors spokesperson said.
The league previously had announced its intentions to add two clubs for the 2024 season, but now it won’t be until at least 2025. The WNBA has 12 teams, and it has not added an expansion franchise since the Atlanta Dream in 2008.
The two Bay Area groups have been at the forefront of the recent expansion effort, as the largest geographical area in the United States without a team and a top-10 media market in the country.
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told the Athletic in December she was looking at 10 interested ownership groups, narrowed from 20 at the start of 2022. She cited a timeline of 18 to 24 months to go from naming a team to having it ready to play in its debut season.
“Good news is, we have a ton of interest from a lot of cities,” she said in the report. “I didn’t think we would have that much interest. And now that we have so much interest, we really want to be thoughtful in how we look at where we’re going to be for the next — because this is a long-term commitment from that ownership group and the league.”
One of the Bay Area’s biggest competitors for an expansion team, Toronto, will host a preseason game in May, though that isn’t specifically an indicator about expansion progress. An update likely will come in the next few weeks and months about next steps for Oakland, the Bay Area, and beyond.
Marisa Ingemi is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: marisa.ingemi@sfchronicle.com
