Monica Wright Rogers’s face lights up.
Toronto Tempo’s general manager had just introduced Sandy Brondello as the team’s inaugural head coach minutes earlier Tuesday at a news conference in downtown Toronto, and she was already thinking about what that might mean for a roster that’s currently blank.
“We want to take advantage of the opportunity of this moment,” Wright Rogers told CBC Sports. “Our moment is all about free agents and what better way to ensure we have the right free agents at the table than to make sure we have a coach that everyone is familiar with.”
In fact, there is little doubt about Brondello’s praise.
The 57-year-old Australian was surprisingly fired by the New York Liberty just a year after winning the title in October, but has been in the WNBA for 27 years as a player, assistant coach and head coach.
Brondello won WNBA championships with the 2014 Mercury and 2024 Liberty. These days, she also serves as head coach of her national team, and was even quick to remind the Canadian audience of her bronze medal victory over Canada at the 2022 World Cup.
In the weeks since his departure from the Liberty, players and coaches alike have praised Brondello, who said he is looking forward to the challenge of building and leading an expansion team in Canada.
“You can build from the ground up and bring in the players that will represent this city and this team the right way and allow us to be the best, highest performing team we can be,” Brondello said.
“The goal is to bring a championship to Toronto. That hasn’t changed. My narrative hasn’t changed. I like to win.”
Toronto Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers met with the media Tuesday to introduce two-time WNBA champion Sandy Brondello as coach of the expansion team.
Compete and win
And so, in hiring Brondello, Tempo made it clear: the goal is not just to lay a solid foundation and bring professional women’s basketball to Toronto. It’s competing and winning.
But the Tempo are entering the WNBA at an interesting time: The confluence of a US media deal worth $200 million annually starting next season and the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement led players to line up their contracts to end this offseason, expecting salaries to skyrocket.
Almost all of the veteran players will be available to teams in free agency.
That’s momentum Wright Rogers hopes to harness for his team’s benefit, perhaps buoyed by the Golden State Valkyries’ surprising playoff appearance in their recently completed inaugural season.
Brondello, whose experience and reputation as a player coach, is an easy selling point.
However, Brondello did say which players will ultimately set the tone for the Tempo in Year 1.
“We have a vision of what our identity should be, but when we have players, which we don’t have right now, we want to have a culture that is the culture of the player,” Brondello said. “What kind of legacy do they want to leave behind?”
The philosophy will also extend to the field. Brondello did not indicate what exact style he will employ, but instead waited to see what the template will ultimately look like.
“Everyone talks about pace and space and all that kind of stuff. In the end, we don’t have players yet, but I want to put them in the best place so they can be successful,” Brondello said.
“So there’s no set style for how we want to play. We want to play entertaining basketball. We want to play great team basketball and be tough. But we also have to be adaptable in the moment.
‘Great city for a sports team’
Wright Rogers continued that speech by vouching for the city she had rarely visited before being named general manager in February.
“Toronto as a city is a great city for a sports team. And I think the players who have been here say a lot about how the city welcomes them,” he said. “And again, just with our strategy around building the staff, having the No. 1s be great people, but letting our players know that they care about their careers and their longevity, they care about the quality of care for them and their families. All of those things are part of the vision and the culture that we’re trying to build here with the Tempo.”
Still, the flip side of this moment for Tempo is immense uncertainty: The league and players recently agreed to extend their CBA negotiation window through Nov. 30, but prior public discourse has been contentious.
The organization doesn’t yet know when the expansion draft will take place or what it will look like, president Teresa Resch told CBC Sports.
The expected start of free agency is in limbo. Before last season, players were allowed to officially sign starting February 1.
For now, however, everything remains the same.
“We hope to get clear direction on the future of the league and we will plan accordingly, but there are many things that we know will happen and we can plan and have discussions. The ball will continue to bounce in the same direction and the strategy on the basketball court does not change,” Resch said.
Either way, Brondello will bring decades of knowledge to a team whose nickname isn’t even a year old. His presence (on and off the court) indicates a desire to win immediately.
“She’s going to compete. She’s going to want to win,” Wright Rogers said. “And that’s who I am too. I would never get into a situation or go on a court if I didn’t want to win, so knowing that that’s as much on her as it is on me solves a lot of problems.”
Brondello, whose place in WNBA history is now assured, said her ultimate goal in Toronto is to build a world-class franchise and “hopefully achieve championships.”
“I think that’s the legacy… I’ve won two. It would be great to win the third one with three different organizations.”
