The PWHL completed its ambitious four-team expansion process with a first entry into California as San Jose became the league's 12th team on Tuesday.
The PWHL, entering its fourth season, has doubled in size since it was established in June 2023. In selecting San Jose, the PWHL adds a region with a population of about 7.6 million, strengthens its geographic footprint with a third Pacific Coast-based franchise, and enters a market with a strong history of supporting women's sports and girls hockey development.
The team will play out of the SAP Center -- home of the NHL's San Jose Sharks.
"Between a deeply rooted hockey culture, rapidly booming women's sports scene, and a community known for growth and innovation, San Jose offers a dynamic stage for the PWHL to expand its reach and build lasting momentum," said Amy Scheer, PWHL executive vice president of business operations.
San Jose's selection closes the league's second expansion process, which also included Detroit, Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario. They join Seattle and Vancouver, who were added last year, and the PWHL's original six markets of Boston, New York, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Minnesota.
Scheer has previously said league officials are exploring playing as two conferences or multiple divisions. All four newcomers help fill geographical voids in reducing travel time between markets.
San Jose has become a hockey hotbed, ranking sixth in the nation in girls hockey participation.
"From its humble beginnings with an NHL expansion team in 1991, San Jose is now truly a 'hockey city,'" Sharks Sports & Entertainment president Jonathan Becher said.
The yet-to-be-named team, whose colors will be orange, blue and white, was officially announced at a news conference at the Shark Tank that featured former Sharks star and Hall of Famer Joe Thornton, 1992 Olympic gold medal figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi and World Cup and Olympic champion soccer star Brandi Chastain.
The league said it has already gotten nearly 2,000 requests for season tickets in the hours after the announcement of the new team and is confident it will meet attendance projections.
"We're very pleased to see the number and that keeps going up," Scheer said.
The PWHL team will be the third major women's professional franchise to come to the Bay Area in recent years, following Bay FC of the National Women's Soccer League in 2024 and the Golden State Valkyries of the WNBA in 2025.
Bay FC ranked third in the NWSL in attendance last season and drew 40,091 fans to a game at Oracle Park in San Francisco for the third largest crowd in league history.
"We believe that women's sport is not a hiccup, it's not a charity, it's not just, 'OK, we'll try it one time,'" said Chastain, a co-founder of Bay FC. "We have believed in women's sports for a long time. I've been screaming about women's sports for 50 or more years. The fact that we have this now, we have such a cadre of women's athletes in our community. ... It is incredible."
The Valkyries made the playoffs as an expansion team when they led the league in attendance with more than 18,000 fans a game at Chase Center. The team was recently valued at a league-high $850 million by Sportico after the ownership paid an expansion fee of $50 million in 2023.
The PWHL controls all of its franchises, and is privately financed by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his wife Kimbra.
The fast-paced growth represents the surge in attention the league anticipated women's hockey would enjoy following the Milan Cortina Olympics in February. Another factor is the league preparing for a bumper-crop of high-level talent declaring for this year's draft.
The 235-player prospect class includes five collegians who won Olympic gold representing the United States, and headed by Wisconsin defender Caroline Harvey, as well as a growing number of Europeans making the jump to North America.
By growing to 12 teams, including seven in the U.S., the PWHL is also in better position to secure a national broadcast partner. Scripps Sports is the likely candidate with the broadcaster taking the first step this season by airing PWHL playoff games on ION, which reaches 126 million American households.
