Inside Nashville's new pro basketball franchise with Nancy VanReece
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Nancy VanReece. Photo: Courtesy of the Nashville UpShot team
Nancy VanReece's journey to her dream job as president and CEO of Nashville's new minor league women's hoops franchise began on a basketball court in Oklahoma.
- When she played six-on-six high school basketball in Oklahoma in the early 1980s, girls teams had wonky rules that limited them to playing on half the court.
Why it matters: Times have changed. From the college level to the WNBA, women's basketball is exploding in popularity.
- Nashville missed out on a WNBA expansion franchise in 2025, but this year, the city was awarded a new franchise in the fledgling UpShot League.
How it works: The UpShot League, which launched last year, develops prospects for the WNBA and gives players a chance to play professionally in the U.S. rather than having to go overseas.
The big picture: The new team, which will begin play in 2027, arrives after years of advocacy to bring a women's pro sports franchise to Nashville.
- In an interview with Axios, VanReece talked about the unique path to her "dream job" — and why the new team is important to the future of women's sports in Nashville.
What excited you about this opportunity?
A lot of my career was spent in the music industry. I've done arts management. I've done marketing, brand building, communication, before getting into the Metro Council [representing the Madison area from 2015 to 2023], where it kind of married that work with community building and organizing. And so when this opportunity presented itself, I really felt like it combined all of those things plus my love of basketball.
When did your love of basketball start?
Well, it's been important to me just as a kid growing up in Oklahoma playing softball and basketball, the relationships that you build with other players, with your teammates.
Can you talk about the UpShot League: When did it form, and what is its mission?
The UpShot League was started in 2025. The first four teams are out of Charlotte, Greensboro, Savannah and Jacksonville. Then they added teams in Baltimore and our team, which starts playing next year.
There's a couple of things that they're addressing by being a league. One is that community impact that a team gives any city because you're creating a team of women that other boys and girls can look up to. Just like the reason people love sports is it gives you that sense of community and engagement because you're all on the same team.
It also provides an opportunity for the women that are second- or third-round draft picks in the WNBA. You look at [the WNBA draft], there will be people that are selected, go to camp and they get cut, and that's happened over and over again.
Most of those really great players have to play overseas if they're going to keep playing, and then hope that there might be an opening.
Where will the team play?
The Nashville team is going to play at Vanderbilt's Memorial Gymnasium, finally activating the campus in the summer, and we're thrilled. We're going to take over the court and kind of skin it in our style.
I'm envisioning a live band at every home game. There'll be 17 home games. It'll be curated, family-friendly entertainment that you'll just want to come back to over and over again. It's about the basketball, but it'll be about more than that.
What do you think the new UpShot franchise will mean for Nashville's hopes of one day getting a WNBA team?
We want this team to last as long as the Nashville Sounds. I mean it's been going [as a minor league franchise since 1978]. It's a developmental team that feeds into another team. We can love that, right?
We also are recognizing the fact that the success and the immediate reaction of this city to this team will help determine whether or not we get a WNBA team.
Join the team: The new franchise is pre-selling tickets for its inaugural season, starting with a $27 package, which saves your spot in line to purchase tickets for home games at Memorial Gym.
Editor's note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.