Everything you need to know about expansion drafts

Professional sports leagues are always looking to grow, and sometimes that means adding new franchises. In North American pro sports, expansion drafts are one of the easiest ways leagues populate new teams.

• The NFL and MLB held the first-ever expansion drafts in the same year — the newly-enfranchised Dallas Cowboys selected their inaugural roster in March 1960 followed by MLB’s LA Angels and the now–Texas Rangers in December.

So what is an expansion draft? Just like a traditional entry draft, an expansion draft involves a team’s front office hand-selecting players to join their roster.

• However, expansion drafts differ in two key ways: First, only the new franchise(s) select players, and second, the athletes chosen already play in the league, unlike in entry drafts where players are, you guessed it, entering the league.

Here are some expansion draft basics:

1️⃣ Protected players: Because the new franchise is choosing players from existing teams, those already-established teams can protect their top talent from being picked. Teams submit their protected player lists ahead of the draft, so the drafting team can plan ahead.

• Another added wrinkle? In some leagues, like the NWSL, teams can use trades and allocation money to protect players. This gives existing teams greater control over which of their players are available for selection.

2️⃣ Selection process: Depending on the number of incoming teams — the NWSL’s 2023 expansion draft had two, but Friday’s WNBA expansion draft only had one — a team’s front office will select players like a traditional draft, either taking turns like in the NWSL’s most-recent case or making their picks all at once.

• Some leagues require teams to choose at least one player from each team, while others opt to limit the number of players that can be chosen from one squad.

3️⃣ Roster building: Usually an expansion draft is a team’s first opportunity to fill out their roster, but once that’s done and dusted, the team can take part in additional roster building like the rest of the league, whether that’s through free agency, trades, or the entry draft.

• For example, the Valkyries can add to their roster with the No. 5 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft next April — and that draft class is chock full of talent.

The details of an expansion draft vary from league to league and are often based on the intricacies of the sport itself. For example, the NWSL allows incumbent teams to protect nine players while the WNBA allows a maximum of six protected players — this discrepancy can be attributed to the difference in roster size between soccer and basketball.

A league’s unique collective bargaining agreement (CBA) can also add complexities to the expansion draft process, with aspects like salary caps and no-trade clauses influencing the way a new team drafts and functions over its first few seasons.

• In the NHL, new teams must spend a minimum amount of their salary cap during the expansion draft, meaning they’ll have less cash available to build out their roster with trades and free agent signings.

Because CBAs are negotiated between the league’s players’ union and the league itself regularly, what was true for a league’s most recent expansion draft, might not be in the next iteration. Stay alert.

Once their rosters are set, expansion teams are ready for their inaugural seasons — and while some hit the ground running, others take time to find their footing. Recent expansions in leagues like the NWSL and NHL show just how varied these journeys can be. Here’s a look at how it’s going:

⚽ The NWSL has had an impressive expansion push, adding six teams since 2021 with another on the way in 2026. The Utah Royals and Bay FC made their league debuts this March, Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC joined in 2022, and the Kansas City Current and Racing Louisville FC entered the fray in 2021.

• The Wave came out scorching hot in their sophomore season, amassing the league’s best regular-season record in 2023 but struggled (in more ways than one) in 2024.

• Bay FC shined in their league debut too, making the playoffs before losing to the eventual championship runners-up, the Washington Spirit, in a spicy quarter-final last month.

• Off the pitch, expansion teams are thriving too, especially the Current, who play in the world’s first-ever purpose-built women’s soccer stadium. Obsessed.

🏒 As for the NHL, the league’s added two new squads in recent years: the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 and the Seattle Kraken in 2021. Both expansion drafts operated under the same rules, but when Vegas entered the league, the regulations were brand new — and the Golden Knights capitalized.

• Heading into Vegas’ expansion draft, front offices were stressed about which players to protect, and because of this, doors opened for Vegas to broker lucrative side deals, which resulted in a haul of draft picks and players.

• And it paid off immediately, as the perennial powerhouse Knights made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season before winning it all in 2023.

• The league was much more prepared for Seattle’s draft in 2021 and didn’t give up the same assets — but the Kraken haven’t been slouches, making the second round of the playoffs in just their second season.

Now that you’re well-versed in the expansion draft space, there are plenty of squads to keep an eye on as they prepare to make their league debuts.

The WNBA will be back in the spotlight next year when two franchises — the newly named Toronto Tempo and still-to-be-named Portland — build out their rosters before taking the court in 2026. Before the Valkyries, the W hadn’t added a team in 16 years.

• Expanding the league from 12 teams to 15 (and eventually 16) is a big deal. With only 144 current roster spots, the additional 36 players Golden State, Toronto, and Portland can ink will allow more top-tier talent to stay in North America.

The NWSL will also be expanding again soon as BOS Nation FC is set to take the pitch in 2026 too. Though the newest NWSL expansion project faced backlash for its announcement campaign in October, the team’s ownership group is determined to make it right before the squad begins play.

As for the men, aside from San Diego FC’s foray into MLS next year, the only other league reportedly considering a new franchise is the NBA, which hasn’t added an expansion team since 2004.

• But the league has expanded its schedule in recent years with games everywhere from Seattle to Montréal to Mexico City, so adding a 31st and 32nd franchise feels inevitable. Watch this space.