TORONTO — As a native Arizonan with plenty of time in California on his resume, Nick U’Ren isn’t used to traversing downtown streets littered with 28 inches of snow — the official number so far in Toronto for February. But the Phoenix Mercury general manager wasn’t going to miss Monica Wright Rogers’ formal introduction as the GM for the Toronto Tempo expansion team. So U’Ren flew in from Phoenix to sit in the front row of a media event in downtown Toronto for his former assistant general manager. Speaking in front of a Toronto Tempo graphic over a giant skyline of Toronto, Wright Rogers discussed her plans to build an on-court product for Canada’s WNBA team.
“In the coming months, we’re going to build this team from the ground up, hiring not only a head coach but an entire roster of talent that will shape our first season,” Wright Rogers said from a third-floor conference room in a building in Toronto’s waterfront district. “We’ll do that through the expansion draft, but also through what I believe will be the most dynamic free-agency period that the league has ever seen. Twenty-one of last year’s WNBA All -Stars are set to become unrestricted free agents in 2026. We are dedicated to bringing the greatest basketball talent in the world here to Toronto.”
The job begins now — the WNBA’s 14th franchise markets itself as representing Toronto but also the entire country. The regular-season schedule in 2026 will include games in Montreal and Vancouver. Until the first coach is hired and players are acquired, Wright Rogers immediately became the public face of the franchise alongside club president Teresa Resch.
“When we set out to find someone, we knew it had to be someone special, it had to be a person that was going to be able to represent Canada and what we’re trying to build in this country,” Resch said. “I worked in the NBA for 10 years, so if you had asked me to hire a NBA GM, I knew who I’d pick right away. The W was a different story. It was an incredible learning opportunity to get to know the league, and what I found was an incredible depth of talent. It was a matter of who was going to be the best fit for the Tempo, and I could not find a better person than Monica to lead this team. Her wide breadth of experiences really captured us, and ultimately what set her apart was who she is as a person and what she brings to the table.”
Wright Rogers described her leadership style as “people first, team first.” U’Ren said Wright Rogers’ greatest strength will be her wealth of connections in basketball, forged by a resume that includes a long playing career (two WNBA titles as a player with the Minnesota Lynx), coaching at the college level (Liberty and University of Virginia), a stint as an NBA executive and as the assistant general manager for the Mercury from 2023 to this year.
“Nothing prepares you until you sit in the seat and you feel the weight on your shoulders,” U’Ren said. “But she was in on every decision. She sat right there next to me and we talked through every scenario that happened, didn’t happen. It is the closest thing you can come to being prepared, but I won’t lie, there will be a difference when you sit in that seat, and there’s only one way to experience it, and that’s to do it.
“She coached in college and she’s worked in the international space in the league office, so she’s seen the game from so many different angles. Youth, grassroots, college, international, pro. I could go on for days about Monica. She is one of the most connected people I’ve ever met in all of basketball, not just women’s basketball. There’s not a gym she walks into where there’s not multiple people that come up to her and give her a huge hug. It’s the depth of her connections and the regard with which people hold her. Basketball is a small world, and from agents to coaches to players, so to have that deep of a network to start is going to give her a big leg up.”
Wright Rogers said she wants a coach in place by the expansion draft, which will take place after the 2025 WNBA season (the regular season ends Sept. 11). Asked about a playing style, she offered no specifics yet but joked that she wanted the team to play “up tempo.”
On the importance of Canadian players on the roster, Wright Rogers said: “I don’t want to make any roster promises, but I will say that I’m really excited about the talent that Canada has in the WNBA and upcoming through those NCAA pipelines, through the national team pipelines. I think that there’s tremendous opportunity to get some of that talent in the future.”
Though the location of Toronto can be a challenge for attracting high-priced U.S.-born free agents in other sports given the very real issue of playing in a different country and the currency rate, U’Ren predicted this won’t be a problem in the WNBA.
“I can’t claim to be the all-knowing expert in this area, and I can’t predict the future, but so many of these players have played overseas before,” U’Ren said. “They’re more worldly. They’re more used to being adaptable to different situations, whether that’s pay or currency. Hopefully, we’re trending in a very positive direction from a salary perspective. But these women play for the love of the game. They haven’t played for big money. They’re here because they love basketball. I think Toronto represents growth. It represents an international expansion. I just think the W players are way more prepared to handle that. It’ll be way less of a barrier to entry, in my opinion.”
The Tempo organization has 12 employees, so Wright Rogers will be heavily involved in shaping the broader culture. CBC Sports reported that Resch’s initial GM candidate list was 20 to 25 people before three finalists were brought to Toronto for final meetings.
“I acknowledge that I sit here today representing many things,” Wright Rogers said. “I’m a woman, I’m a person of color, I’m a former athlete, a mother, a partner, a daughter and a sister. The collection of who I am is what has prepared me for this moment. I’m going to take this time to connect with anyone who has ever felt underestimated, overlooked or unseen. I’m living proof that you can uphold what’s true to you while accomplishing big things.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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