Monica Wright Rogers’s face lights up.
The Toronto Tempo general manager had just introduced Sandy Brondello as the team’s inaugural head coach minutes earlier on Tuesday at a press conference in downtown Toronto, and she was already thinking about what that could mean for a roster that is currently blank.
“We want to take advantage of the opportunity of this moment,” Wright Rogers told CBC Sports. “Our moment has to do with free agents and what better way to ensure we have the right free agents at the table than ensuring that we have a coach that they’re all familiar with.”
Indeed, there is little questioning Brondello’s accolades.
The 57-year-old Australian was shockingly let go by the New York Liberty just one year after winning the title in October, but she’s been in the WNBA for 27 years as a player, assistant coach and head coach.
Brondello won WNBA championships with the 2014 Mercury and the 2024 Liberty. These days, she also doubles as head coach of her national team, and was even quick to remind the Canadian audience of her bronze-medal win over Canada at the 2022 World Cup.
In the weeks since leaving the Liberty, players and coaches alike have lauded Brondello, who said she is looking forward to the challenge of building and leading an expansion team in Canada.
“You can build from the ground up and you can bring the players in that will represent this city and this team in the right way and enable us to be the best, the highest-performing team that we can,” Brondello said.
“The goal is to bring a championship to Toronto. That hasn’t changed. My narrative hasn’t changed. I like winning.”
Toronto Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers met the media on Tuesday, to introduce two-time WNBA champion coach Sandy Brondello as the expansion team’s coach.
Compete and win
And so by hiring Brondello, the Tempo made it clear: the goal isn’t just to cement a solid foundation and bring professional women’s basketball to Toronto. It’s to compete and to win.
But the Tempo are entering the WNBA at an interesting time — the confluence of a U.S. media deal worth $200 million US annually beginning next season and the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement led players to line up their contracts to end this off-season, expecting salaries to soar.
Nearly every veteran player will be available to teams in free agency.
That’s the moment Wright Rogers is hoping to use to her team’s advantage, perhaps buoyed by the expansion Golden State Valkyries surprising playoff appearance in their recently completed inaugural season.
Brondello, whose experience and reputation as a player’s coach, is an easy selling point.
Yet Brondello said the players that will ultimately set the tone for the Tempo in Year 1.
“We have a vision of what our identity should look like, but when we have players, which we don’t have at the moment, we want to have a culture that’s the player’s culture,” Brondello said. “What kind of legacy do they want to leave behind?”
The philosophy will extend on the court, too. Brondello didn’t tip her hand as to what exact style she’ll employ, instead waiting to see what the roster ultimately looks 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 the players in the best spot so that they can have success,” Brondello said.
“So there’s no set style of 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 for the moment.
‘Great city for a sports team’
Wright Rogers continued that pitch by vouching for the city she’d rarely visited before being named GM in February.
“Toronto as a city is a great city for a sports team. And I think for players that have been here, they speak volumes to how the city embraces them,” she said. “And again, just with our strategy around building the staff, that No. 1 are great people, but that our players know care about their careers and their longevity, care about the quality of care for them and their families. All 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 the Tempo is immense uncertainty — the league and players recently agreed to extend their CBA negotiation window until Nov. 30, but prior public discourse has been contentious.
The organization still doesn’t 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. Prior to last season, players were allowed to officially sign as of Feb. 1.
For now, though, it’s business as usual.
“We look forward to getting clear direction on the future of the league and we’ll plan accordingly, but there’s a lot of things that we know will happen and we can plan for and have discussions. The ball is still gonna bounce in the same direction and the strategy on the basketball court doesn’t change,” Resch said.
However it plays out, Brondello will bring decades of know-how to a team whose moniker isn’t even one-year-old. Her presence — on and off the court— signals a desire to win immediately.
“She’s gonna compete. She’s gonna want to win,” Wright Rogers said. “And that’s just who I am as well. I would never get into a situation or step onto a court if I didn’t want to win and so just knowing that’s in her as well as me, it solves a lot of problems.”
Brondello, whose place is WNBA lore is already secure, said her ultimate goal in Toronto is to build a world-class franchise and “hopefully bring championships.”
“I think that’s the legacy. … I’ve won two. It’d be great to win the third one with three different organizations.”
