CLEVELAND — Cleveland’s WNBA team doesn’t play its first game until May 2028. However, the framework is steadily being put in place.
The franchise announced on Tuesday that Progressive Insurance will be the jersey patch sponsor. It will also be the first time in the WNBA that a sponsor has bought both spots on a jersey. Teams are allowed to sell jersey patch placement on the upper left corner of uniforms as well as a larger spot under the numbers on the front of the jersey.
The Phoenix Mercury were the first WNBA team to have a jersey sponsor in 2009.
“We have a smaller partnership with Chicago that we announced a couple months ago, but this one was special to us,” said Mari Pumarejo, Progressive’s chief marketing officer. “Once we heard that the WNBA was going to bring a team to Cleveland, it was a good fit for us and we kept our ears open for an opportunity to learn more about it. And once we met (president of business operations) Allison (Howard) and the team, we just knew that our values matched and that we could have the kind of partnership where we could help support women’s sports, the community and city.”
Progressive is based in Cleveland with its corporate headquarters in suburban Mayfield Heights, Ohio. The company has had a naming rights agreement for Cleveland’s baseball stadium since 2008.
Progressive CEO Tricia Griffith is also an investor in the Cleveland Astra, a women’s soccer team that is expected to begin playing in 2028.
The announcement is another building block since Cleveland was granted an expansion team on June 30, 2025. The Cleveland Rockers were one of the original franchises when the WNBA started in 1997, but folded in 2003.
Over the past year, Cleveland has had 9,000 deposits for season tickets.
“It has continued to grow. We were going to fully stand up the team until closer to about two years out, but we started to listen to the community right away and they wanted to know more and more of how we were going to treat this team,” Howard said. “We are definitely taking our time to make sure that we’re doing it right. But we’re excited to continue to take the feedback from people and be able to participate and do a lot of listening.”
The announcement of the jersey sponsor is the first of many over the next 12 months. The team name is expected to be announced sometime in the next couple months. Dan Gilbert’s Rock Entertainment Group, the team’s owner, has also announced “a special event” for Aug. 4 at Rocket Arena.
“I give so much credit to the teams around the league that have not had two to three years because what we have been able to do is go on a listening tour and meet all of these new people and really hear their stories. And one thing in women’s sports is it is very emotional for a lot of people,” Howard said. “People come up to me and will tell me a story of having to drive or having to fly hours away to the closest women’s basketball game, even if it was college and how hard it has been to be a fan.”
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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
