Portland WNBA hires Nike executive Clare Hamill as interim president after firing Inky Son: Source

New York Times

17 hours ago

Portland WNBA has brought in Clare Hamill, a longtime Nike executive, as its interim president, effective immediately, a source close to the situation told The Athletic. The hire follows the departure of Inky Son, the franchise's most prominent hire to date.
Hamill spent 43 years with Nike in a variety of roles, including as their vice president and general manager of Nike Women's, before retiring last year.
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She replaces Son, Portland's first team president, whom the franchise hired on April 1 but is out of the job less than three months after assuming the role. The team announced Son's departure on Friday.
'During her brief but impactful tenure, Son helped lay the foundation for the franchise's presence in Portland, shaping its early business operations and community engagement efforts,' RAJ Sports, the ownership group of the franchise, said in a jointly-released statement.
Son was formerly the chief administrative officer of the National Basketball Players Association. When she was hired to lead Portland, RAJ Sports managing director Mike Whitehead said she would 'lay the groundwork for our future growth.'
'The organization thanks her for her leadership during this important phase and wishes her success in her next chapter,' RAJ Sports' latest statement continued, adding that Son would return to New York, where she had previously been based.
The WNBA awarded Portland its expansion team last September, and the team is expected to debut next season along with the new Toronto Tempo. Toronto has already hired a team president (Teresa Resch), general manager (Monica Wright Rogers) and assistant general manager (Eli Horowitz), among others.
Portland has not built out its basketball operations staff, though league sources have said they had been in the process of finding a general manager. How the team president switch-up will impact the timing of the GM search is not immediately clear.
It also appears more news is forthcoming out of Portland. Last week, the WNBA filed trademarks for the name 'Portland Fire' and a stylized 'P' logo, potentially indicating that the league's 15th franchise will revive the Fire name from the team that existed from 2000-02.
The organization has teased an announcement for July in which it will share details regarding the team's name and logo. 'The countdown is on. We'll see you July 15!' a spokesperson for WNBA Portland said in a previously issued statement.
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Despite the change at the top of the organization, RAJ Sports announced earlier this week Portland WNBA had already surpassed 10,000 season-ticket deposits.
Portland had been the home of the Fire for three unremarkable seasons, with the team failing to make the playoffs each year. The franchise, which was then led by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, folded due to financial losses. It was one of six teams to fold by 2009.
The city has also faced turmoil in other ways. Portland was under strong consideration by the WNBA to be the location of its 14th franchise, which was later awarded to Toronto. An initial Portland bid for a WNBA team had been led by Kirk Brown, a wealthy businessman who had founded the company that is now called ZoomInfo. But those talks fell apart late in the process, just before a public announcement planned for late 2024.
The franchise is currently being led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who also own the NWSL's Portland Thorns.
The Bhathal family also has ties to the NBA as Raj Bhathal, their father, is the principal co-owner of the Sacramento Kings and is majority owner Vivek Ranadivé's alternate on the league's board of governors.
In February, the Thorns and WNBA Portland unveiled plans for a shared $150 million campus that will be the first-ever performance center shared by NWSL and WNBA franchises. The facility will repurpose an existing suburban office complex previously occupied by Nike near Portland, and is expected to be completed by 2026.
The WNBA has yet to name its 16th franchise, and accepted more than 10 formal bids last January for a future team.