The PWHL is expanding to Detroit for the 2026-27 season. The league announced the news on Wednesday. Detroit is the first of what could be up to four new teams the league is introducing via expansion.
The team, which was unveiled as PWHL Detroit, will play at Little Caesars Arena, home of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings, and train at the BELFOR Training Center, which is inside LCA.
Detroit Becomes Ninth PWHL Franchise
PWHL Detroit is the league’s ninth franchise. It joins the original six markets in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York and Minnesota, and the league’s first expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver.
Mark Walter – the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers – and his wife, Kimbra, own the league and its nine teams under a single-entity ownership model. This means there are no individual team owners as we’d typically see in other major pro sports leagues such as the NHL, NFL and MLB.
“This one’s been a while in the making,” said the PWHL’s executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer. “I think we all felt we could have come here last year, and so (we’re) excited that this time is really here.”
Ilitch Sports and Entertainment Led Detroit Bid
According to the league’s news release, Detroit’s bid was led by Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Red Wings and MLB’s Detroit Tigers. Ryan Gustafson, the president and CEO of Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, said, “We’re excited to welcome the PWHL to Little Caesars Arena and thankful for the partnership with the league to bring a team to Hockeytown.
Gustafson added that, “The energy Detroit fans have brought to Takeover Tour games over the past few years has been undeniable — it’s clear this is a market ready to embrace professional women’s hockey.”
Fan Support in Detroit
The PWHL has hosted four neutral-site games at Little Caesars Arena, drawing 53,586 fans over the last three years. The last game, on March 28, was the most well-attended (15,938) in Detroit and came on a day when the Red Wings played a few hours later, showcasing that double-headers could be an effective workaround to the arena’s busy schedule.
That game, between the Montreal Victoire and New York Sirens, was also the first to air on national television in the United States, which was broadcast on ION.
“We feel very confident in how we can do here from a business perspective,” said Scheer, who credited Ilitch Sports as excellent partners for the league. “Whether it’s a standalone date, whether it’s a doubleheader with the Red Wings, we feel we will be very successful here in Detroit.”
Expansion Criteria
Like last year, there was a long list of criteria the PWHL examined when deciding where to expand this season. These included market size, fan support, infrastructure and what kind of economic opportunity exists in the market, among other factors.
“There’s a lot of reasons that (Detroit) makes a lot of sense,” said Jayna Hefford.
The PWHL is expanding to Detroit for the 2026-27 season.