The WNBA is a professional women’s basketball league, run by the NBA and most located with current NBA teams. It currently features 13 teams, but may be ready to expand to 14 teams for the 2010 season. Since this league has been around for more than 12 years, ownership of WNBA franchises is starting to trickle outside of the NBA team owners whom they share markets with.

While the WNBA was not the first professional women’s basketball league it does hold a few key milestones. It was the first Women’s league to sign a collective bargaining agreement between its club owners. It was also the first Women’s sports league to play more than ten consecutive seasons. It is also the only professional women's league to have a multi million dollar TV broadcasting deal.

The NBA decided to launch the WNBA in 1996. Originally the NBA owned and operated not only the WNBA but all of its team as well. The league thought it had an ideal marketing tool as the USA Women’s team had just finished up its Gold Medal run in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. However the leagues debuted was too little fan fare.

In all the WNBA played it first season with eight teams including:

• Charlotte Sting
• Cleveland Rockers
• Houston Comets
• Los Angeles Sparks
• New York Liberty
• Phoenix Mercury
• Sacramento Monarchs
• Utah Starzz

The fact that three of these teams ultimately failed (Sting, Rockers, and Comets), and another (Starzz) were relocated to San Antonio it was obvious to all that the WNBA business model needed to be adjusted.

While the new league failed to lure in large crowds, or gather much reaction from the mainstream sports press the NBA decided to add two teams to the league following the 1997 season. These teams were the Detroit Shock and the Washington Mystics.

Over the next two seasons the WNBA grew to 16 teams after two teams were added following the 1999 season; the Minnesota Lynx and the Orlando Miracle. In 2000 four teams were added to the league; the Indiana Fever, Seattle Storm, Miami Sol, and Portland Fire.

By 2002 the WNBA had became a small but viable league and the NBA decided to end its central ownership of the league and all of its teams. After the 2002 season the WNBA tried to sell off all 16 franchises.

These teams were either sold to NBA owners in the same market or to interested third party owners. The team that shared a NBA owner and facility came to be known as sister teams and were deemed crucial to WNBA success since these NBA owners had stadiums for the teams to play in and were able to pay payroll and market the league.

When this happened the Orlando Miracle became the first WNBA team to be owned not by a NBA franchise but a third party and the team was moved to Connecticut where they became the Sun. Since new owners could not be found for the Portland and Miami Franchises these teams were shuttered. This left the WNBA with 14 active teams.

In 2003 The Cleveland Rockers, an original WNBA franchise, announced it would cease operations. Later in 2006 the Charlotte Bobcats announced it no longer cared to operate the Charlotte Sting. It was then that the first true WNBA expansion team came to be and the franchise was sent to Chicago and named the Sky.

In 2007 the WNBA awarded its second expansion team to Atlanta businessman Ron Terwilliger an expansion WNBA franchise which was named the Dream by a fan vote.

In 2007 another original team, the Houston Comets were sold to Texas businessman Hilton Koch. While the Comets were the original WNBA dynasty winning the first four WNBA titles, the franchise fell on hard times under Koch. While the Comets were drawing a huge cord, by WNBA standards 13,000 fans per home game, Koch announced that the team would move from the Toyota Center to Reliant Arena a facility that only could sit 7,200 fans. This resulted in a loss of fans and after starting the 2008 season 0-10 Koch had had enough.

Koch but the team up for sale for 10 million dollars, but no investors stepped up and ultimately the league was forced to step in and take over the team, later the team was disbanded as the economy faltered and no new ownership could be found.

Now days the WNBA is 13 teams strong and seven of which are owned by third part ownership groups outside of NBA franchise owners. This seems to imply that the business model is working and the league can survive while drawing in an average of 8,000 fans per game.