Tempo to hire Sandy Brondello: Former Liberty coach will lead Toronto's WNBA expansion franchise, per report
The Tempo will play their inaugural season in 2026
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1 min read
Sandy Brondello wasn't out of a job for long after not having her contract renewed by the New York Liberty, as Howard Megdal of The IX reported Wednesday that Brondello would be named the first coach of the Toronto Tempo.
Brondello spent the past four seasons coaching the Liberty, leading the franchise to its first championship in 2024, but was not renewed after a difficult season in New York that ended in a first-round loss to the team she got her start with as a head coach in the WNBA, the Phoenix Mercury.
For her career, Brondello has gone 271-181 with a pair of championships across her 12 seasons in Phoenix and New York. Both of those teams were on the precipice of winning a title when she took over -- Phoenix won in her first year and New York in her third -- but now Brondello will take on an extremely different challenge with the expansion Tempo.
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The Golden State Valkyries set the bar extremely high for the new franchises coming into the WNBA in this latest round of expansion, becoming the first team in league history to reach the playoffs in their inaugural season. That'll be difficult to match for Toronto, but Brondello will be able to help guide the franchise into building the kind of roster and culture that's necessary for contending in the long term.
When the Tempo will get a chance to start building that roster is still unknown, as they are at the mercy of the ongoing CBA negotiations. The new expansion draft rules will be set in that new collective bargaining agreement, and with reports indicating the two sides aren't particularly close to a deal with the Oct. 31 deadline rapidly approaching, Toronto will likely be waiting a good bit longer before they get to start adding players officially.
In the meantime, Brondello and Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers can begin working out the kinds of players they want to target in an expansion draft and go through the many contingencies depending on what structure the league and WNBPA adopt for it.
