Thorns, WNBA Portland, Setting New Standards with Groundbreaking Performance Center
Photo Courtesy: Portland Thorns
Team owners RAJ Sports increase investment in Portland women’s sports with first-of-its-kind advanced training center
For more than a decade, the Portland Thorns have served as a leading catalyst for the growth of women’s professional sports – not only in the United States, but beyond.
Since the club’s inaugural season in 2013, the Thorns quickly established themselves as the best-attended women’s professional soccer team in the world. On the pitch, the club has established a history of excellence by winning three NWSL Championships and two NWSL Shields.
But as the league has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 13 years, so too have the standards and level of competition. Featuring 14 teams now (with two more slated to join in 2026), the league has doubled in size since that first season when the Thorns served as one of eight founding sides.
As they have since the beginning, the Thorns continue to be on the front foot. Recently, RAJ Sports – the sports investment platform for the Bhathal family, who own and operate both the Thorns and the Portland WNBA franchise – unveiled plans for a new sports performance center that will serve as the shared home for all aspects of the Thorns and the city’s new WNBA team.
In just over a year, RAJ Sports has made considerable investments in women’s sports in Portland. The Bhathal family finalized their purchase of the Thorns in January 2024 and a mere eight months later announced the acquisition of a WNBA expansion team, which is busy building for its inaugural season at Moda Center in 2026. Like the performance center, itself, there are many milestone developments ahead for Portland’s new WNBA entry, including the team’s name and identity. Just this past Tuesday, the team announced it has hired Inky Son, who most recently served as chief administrative officer at the NBA Players Association, as the team president for the Portland WNBA team. She previously worked in licensing for the MLB Players Association after spending the first part of her career working with notable fashion brands.
With groundbreaking expected in the coming weeks, the new performance center will be built in neighboring Hillsboro as a repurposing of an existing office complex in partnership with Workspace Property Trust. Ultimately, it will grow to be a 63,000 square-foot shared training center for the Thorns and the to-be-named WNBA team. With its many state-of-the-art features, the new facility is a first-of-its-kind, dual-sports performance center for women that is being designed with lifestyle elements specific to the female athletes it will serve.
Photo Courtesy: Portland Thorns
Photo Courtesy: Portland Thorns
Karina LeBlanc, who serves as the executive vice president for strategic growth development for RAJ Sports, has witnessed the considerable growth of women’s sports and the passion Portland has for it first-hand. As a member of the Thorns inaugural-season team of 2013, she immediately developed a strong appreciation for the city and the support it has shown for women’s athletics. Growing up, she says her first love was basketball, with her role at RAJ Sports now serving as a “dream job” that combines her two sporting preferences.
But LeBlanc sees the new performance center as being much more than a shiny new structure. She points out that there is a difference between simply “investing” in women’s sports and “being invested,” emphasizing how rewarding it has been to work with the Bhathal family and RAJ Sports in further reinforcing Portland as “an epicenter for women’s sports” through their passionate work to elevate the two teams and their respective leagues.
“Being able to be part of that conversation and being with an ownership group that is really leaning into it – not just buying a team, but making a difference and really setting a new standard for what is possible with women’s sports, that’s exciting for me,” LeBlanc said.
The new performance center will be built over multiple phases at a cost exceeding $150 million. The first phase, scheduled to be completed in 2026 in time for the start of the NWSL and WNBA seasons, is a $75 million, 12-acre facility that is being designed by Populous, a leading global design firm.
“Advocating to drive change in women’s sports, our team at Populous is committed to helping female athletes optimize their performance by designing training facilities that honor their unique needs and talents,” said Sherri Privitera, Director of Women’s Professional Sports, Populous. “Our local office rooted in the Portland community, combined with our team of experts across the country, are thrilled to work in concert with the Portland Thorns and WNBA expansion franchise to design this new, purpose-built training facility.”
The performance center will include two soccer fields, two full-sized basketball courts, a 5,000 square-foot training facility, an elite training core program, dedicated dressing rooms for both teams with amenities designed for female athletes, a dining hall with a full-time chef and nutritionist, dedicated family rooms and team meeting rooms.
Photo Courtesy: Portland Thorns
Photo Courtesy: Portland Thorns
“Every little piece of this facility has been thought through, and it’s because of the leadership of the Bhathal family,” LeBlanc said.
The new facility not only will serve the needs of the athletes, coaches and members of the technical and training staff, but it also will house all the business operations for both teams. By bringing everything under one roof, LeBlanc says everyone involved is looking forward to the camaraderie and idea-sharing the new site will offer.
“Every day coming to work, you’ll feel like you’re part of something special,” LeBlanc said. “We’re all part of something bigger than ourselves, and rarely do you get to do that in your life. We get to redefine what’s possible in women’s sports.”
Growing up, LeBlanc remembers the 1996 Olympics fondly as she keenly watched the U.S. women’s basketball team win gold. At a time when women’s sports weren’t nearly as front-and-center as they are today, it was a particularly important moment in time for her as an aspiring young athlete, especially with basketball being her first love. For the first time she could recall, she saw, with her own eyes, what was possible in women’s athletics.
“I finally got to see, on TV, a woman who looks like me playing a game,” she said.
Like many, LeBlanc is bullish on the impact the continued investment in women’s sports can have on not only the women of today, but for generations of young girls, especially here in Portland. Now, she says her young daughter is “convinced she’s going to be a professional soccer player,” not because of her mother, but because of what’s in front of her, what she is exposed to in the city on a regular basis.
“Portland is doing something that goes far beyond a building, it’s creating possibilities.”
To Learn More
For more information on the Thorns, visit www.thorns.com. With lots of exciting developments ahead, fans of Portland’s new WNBA team can place a deposit for season tickets and learn more about the team’s evolution at WNBA.com/Portland.