Portland’s WNBA team is bringing back the Fire, but is the team on track after early missteps?

On Tuesday, Oregon’s WNBA expansion team announced its name and branding, which revives the name of the WNBA team that played in Portland from 2000-2002.

The team’s colors are red, pink, brown and blue, and the logo is a stylized flaming rose. Somewhat unexpectedly, the branding was not a retro adaptation of the Fire’s straight-forward logo, which shared its color scheme with the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.

But the long-awaited unveiling did not come as a total surprise. Local reporter Sean Highkin wrote that the ownership group had applied to trademark the Portland Fire name last month in his publication, the Rose Garden Report.

It was another example of how the team’s rollout has been a bit clumsy.

The name reveal in itself felt off. It was announced at 6 a.m. Portland time on Good Morning America — hardly an outlet connected to the local community. Then, a celebratory party at the Moda Center, where the Fire will play, was set for 3 p.m. on a weekday. One dad posted on social media that he would have loved to have taken his daughter to the event, but had to work.

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The name itself has also drawn criticism from the Portland community for its tone-deaf tie to wildfires that have become increasingly frequent and devastating in the state as the effects of climate change continue to escalate.

Then late last month, the team’s president, Inky Son, suddenly parted ways with the team after just three months on the job. Clare Hamill, a retired Nike executive, was hastily hired in the interim.

In an interview last week before the team’s branding reveal, Hamill insisted naming process had been lengthy and included community input.

“There were a ton of names looked at and vetted. But then as the names came together, and the creative process came together, there was just this groundswell of believing that this fire, this Portland Fire, reborn now in 2026 was absolutely the way to go,” she said.

The other WNBA expansion team set to start play next year, the Toronto Tempo, announced its name and branding back in December. The team hired a general manager, former Minnesota Lynx player Monica Wright Rogers, in February, and got attention by bringing on Serena Williams as an investor and Sephora as a sponsor.

To the Fire’s credit, it has already lined up Alaska Airlines as a sponsor and First Tech Federal Credit Union was the team’s first announced partner. Toronto was also awarded its team in May 2024, some five months before Portland was announced.

But there’s no sign of a general manager yet, even as Hamill said to expect a flurry of announcements in the coming weeks.

One thing is certain: The original Fire remain beloved in Portland. Memorabilia adorns the walls of the Sports Bra, and occasionally a Fire T-shirt can be spotted on a fan on the street. At Tuesday’s street party there were plenty of throwback Fire jerseys.

The Portland Fire played for just three seasons when the NBA owned the league’s teams. In 2002, the NBA ended that arrangement, and the teams were sold to their affiliated NBA teams or independent owners. Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder who died in 2018, served as chairman of the Fire but declined to buy the team. Unable to find an independent owner, the team folded.

The Fire went 37-59 over its three seasons in the league and never made the playoffs. Perhaps the team is best known for drafting Jackie Stiles in 2001, after she led Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State University) to the Final Four.

Stiles was the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year that season and was named an All-Star, the only Portland player to earn the honor. Unfortunately, she was limited by injuries after her rookie season.

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Hamill said that with the name and branding in place, the Fire will have plenty to announce in the coming weeks, assuring fans that the team is on track. And interest is certainly not an issue, there have already been 11,000 season-ticket deposits (the original Fire drew just over 8,000 fans per game in their final season.)

“I think everyone is going to be like, ‘Oh, you guys were all over this,'” Hamill said. “The brand, the launch but also the website, the merchandise, the things were doing to connect with the community. So we’re pointing everybody to the launch and the pace we’re moving, and just giving everyone the confidence that we have our arms around it. We’re moving fast, and you’re going to hear from us a lot.”

The Portland Fire will make their on-court WNBA debut in 2026, with downtown Portland’s Moda Center as their central hub.