The WNBA is returning to southeast Michigan for the first time since 2009, when the highly decorated Shock moved to Tulsa.

Detroit — It’s official: Detroit is getting its WNBA team.

The WNBA announced Thursday night that its Board of Governors has formally approved previously announced expansion teams for Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia.

The WNBA announced in June 2025 its intention to set up shop in each of those cities. Cleveland will begin play in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030.

Detroit’s WNBA team will play its home games at Little Caesars Arena — the third full-time tenant of the building, joining the Pistons and Red Wings — and is expected to have its own standalone practice facility.

This marks a return of the WNBA to Michigan. The Detroit Shock played at The Palace of Auburn Hills from 1998-2009, winning three championships, in 2003, 2006 and 2008, under head coach (and former Pistons “Bad Boy” Bill Laimbeer). The team then was sold and moved to Tulsa, Okla., after longtime Pistons and Palace owner Bill Davidson died in 2009, and the franchise now is the Dallas Wings.

Detroit’s new WNBA team, which has yet to announce a nickname (the Shock remains a possibility, but not a formality), is to be owned by a group of investors led by Pistons owner Tom Gores and wife Holly. The ownership group includes several high-profile investors, including Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp and husband Steve, General Motors CEO Mary Barry and husband, Lions quarterback Jared Goff and wife Christen, former Piston and NBA Hall-of-Famer Grant Hill and wife Tamia, and Fab Five legend Chris Webber, among several others.

Little Caesars Arena is expected to undergo millions in renovations to add in locker-room facilities for the new WNBA team, and a 75,000-square-foot practice facility (along with a 100-square-foot youth sports facility) is planned for east Detroit, near the Belle Isle bridge.

The WNBA, which launched in 1996, has 15 teams, and will expand to 18 by 2030, amid the recent spike in popularity of the sports, with the emergence of star players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers.

The WNBA and the Players Association recently agreed on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will see team salary caps rise to $7 million in 2026, from $1.5 million in 2025. Average salaries will approach $600,000.

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A former treatment facility in Detroit is the subject of a newly filed lawsuit, alleging that a teen was sexually abused while there.

The Detroit Behavioral Institute and Acadia Healthcare are listed in a new lawsuit filed in the Wayne County Circuit Court. According to the lawsuit, a 17-year-old was sent to the facility in 2015 and was allegedly sexually abused and groomed by a staff member over the next year.

“When he was restraining her, he’d fondle her and grope her. And it was under this sort of idea that he was calming her down,” said attorney Nicholas Wainwright with Gould, Grieco, and Hensley.

According to the lawsuit, the institute had two locations in Detroit, but the state suspended its license in 2022 after continuous abuse allegations.  

Acadia Healthcare currently operates several treatment facilities in Michigan and across the country. CBS News Detroit reached out to the company on Wednesday and is awaiting a response.   

“This is a company with a litany of problems at the state and federal level,” Wainwright told CBS News Detroit.

The lawsuit alleges that a staff member went as far as purchasing underwear for the victim.

“He would buy her lacy underwear, have inappropriate conversations about having affairs and cheating on his wife,” Wainwright said.

Last year, several victims filed lawsuits against Detroit Behavioral Institute and Acadia Healthcare, alleging similar accusations. The litigation for that case is still ongoing.

“How are they making sure, when two people restrain a kid, we’re checking to make sure the way they said it went down is the way it went down,” Wainwright said.

Wainwright alleges that the company started putting profits over people, which is when problems began to escalate.

“Then they stop focusing on things like hiring the top tier indivudals to be there, because they cost more money. They start focusing on how we can do this – cheaper and cheaper and cheaper,” Wainwright said.

According to the lawsuit, the victim suffered extreme emotional damage from her time at the facility.