The Big Lead

Candace Parker, Peyton Manning pursue WNBA expansion team

By Joe Lago

Candace Parker waving to someone at the NCAA college basketball game between the Tennessee Lady Vols and Georgia on Sunday, January 15, 2023 in Knoxville, Tenn. Lady Vols Baskeball
Candace Parker waving to someone at the NCAA college basketball game between the Tennessee Lady Vols and Georgia on Sunday, January 15, 2023 in Knoxville, Tenn. Lady Vols Baskeball / Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
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If their dreams come true, Candace Parker and Peyton Manning will be part owners of a WNBA franchise that will honor a University of Tennessee sports icon.

The former Volunteers greats are among the local luminaries in an ownership group looking to land the WNBA's 16th franchise and the state's first women's professional sports team, which would be called the Tennessee Summitt after legendary Vols women's basketball head coach Pat Summitt.

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Parker, Manning, country music power couple Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and soon-to-be Nashville Predators owner Bill Haslam and wife Crissy submitted a bid Thursday to bring the WNBA to Tennessee.

"This is going to be Tennessee's team," Crissy Haslam told The Tennessean. "There's going to be families with daughters who play basketball, but there are going to be people who don't even know yet that they are going to love this sport."

"Tennessee is the DNA of everything women's basketball stands for," said Parker, a three-time WNBA champion who led the Vols to back-to-back national titles in 2007 and 2008. "I'm excited to be part of the group working to bring a WNBA team to the state and honor Coach Summitt's legacy."

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told The Tennessean last April that Tennessee "certainly" is among the league's top expansion candidates. The list of hopeful cities includes Cleveland, Houston, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri.

Haslam, the former governor of Tennessee, long admired the "excellence" of Summitt and her women's basketball program. He said it would be "kind of fun to give a personal tribute to somebody I'm both a fan of and was a friend of mine."

Haslam said he expects to know the outcome of Tennessee's expansion bid in "five to six months."

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