The Toronto Tempo made history by hiring two-time WNBA Champion Sandy Brondello as their first head coach in franchise history.
According to Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports, Brondello will earn a seven-figure salary, making her one of the WNBA’s highest-paid coaches. She even turned down a higher-paying opportunity, saying Toronto “is the place I wanted to be.”
The news comes just over a month after the New York Liberty parted ways with Brondello after four seasons at the helm. In Tuesday’s introductory presser, the two-time WNBA champion said her familiarity with Tempo General Manager Monica Wright Rogers was a driving factor in her decision.
“Sandy is a builder, she is a teacher, [and] she is a winner as a player and coach,” Wright Rogers said during the introductory press conference on Tuesday.
“She has excelled on the biggest stages in our sport, including bringing home two WNBA championships as a head coach, yet she leads with humility, clarity, and care, qualities that elevate an entire organization. From rookies to veterans, from the locker room to the front office, the Tempo is about more than pace of play; it’s a mindset, old, intelligent, and unrelenting, and no one embodies that mindset better than Sandy.”
Just on Oct. 14, the Portland Fire hired Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Alex Sarama as their first head coach in franchise history. Both expansion teams have selected their new head coaches to lead them into their inaugural seasons.
Sandy Brondello reportedly turned down more money from the Dallas Wings and the Seattle Storm to coach the Toronto Tempo, per @FOS.
— THE SHIFT (@theshift_sports) November 4, 2025
She will still be one of the highest paid coaches in the WNBA after accepting a $1M+ contract from the Tempo 👀 pic.twitter.com/0W0nJ4zow0
Brondello Brings Championship Experience to Toronto
Brondello is familiar with the WNBA as a former player who competed for three different teams over five seasons from 1998 to 2003. She was also named a WNBA All-Star in the league’s first game in New York in 1999, while with the Detroit Shock.
After she retired from competition, Brondello began her coaching career as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Silver Stars for four seasons before being promoted to head coach in 2010. That year, she led the team to a playoff berth, falling to the Phoenix Mercury in a first-round sweep.
Brondello also served as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Sparks for three seasons before becoming a head coach. She went on to coach the Phoenix Mercury for eight seasons and, most recently, the New York Liberty for four seasons. She, in fact, led each team to a championship (Phoenix in 2014 and New York in 2024).
“[It’s] different because it is an expansion team and not having any place,” Brondello said about her mindset coming into Toronto. “But that’s also exciting, because now you can build from the ground up, and you can bring the players in that will represent this city and this team in the right way, and enable us to be the highest-performing team that we can.
“I mean, the goal is to bring a championship to Toronto. That hasn’t changed. My narrative hasn’t changed. I like winning. Yeah, it’s fun, but I also know it’s hard. And we’ll go to work starting from the ground up—building the right culture, adding the right players, and making sure that we continue to work together so we can put the best product out on the floor.”
Brondello Has Coached Some of the Greatest Players in WNBA History
Throughout her coaching career, Brondello has coached WNBA legends and current stars, including Becky Hammon, Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and several others.
As Brondello settles in Toronto after a shocking departure from New York less than a year after leading the Liberty to its first franchise championship, she is now ready to establish an identity with the Tempo.
“Culture, that’s the most important thing when you’re starting anything,” Brondello said. “Before Xs and Os, it’s about the legacy you leave behind. It’s not just bringing in talent, but players of high character to represent the city.”
Additionally, Brondello was part of the Australian women’s national team both as a player and head coach, winning three Olympic medals—one bronze and two silver—as a player, and earning a bronze medal as a coach in the Paris Olympics.
“The WNBA’s 30 years young, and I’ve been in the league 27 of those years,” Brondello said. “[I bring] perspective as a player, assistant coach, head coach: the evolution of the game… I’ve had experiences coaching all around the world and also our international team. Being an ambassador, I take that very seriously, not just for the Tempo, but for the entire WNBA. Basketball’s a global game.”
Champion. All-Star. Dedicated to the game.
— Toronto Tempo (@TempoBasketball) November 4, 2025
Get to know our head coach Sandy
Brondello. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/D7wnGdpC3w
Why Sandy Brondello Chose Toronto
At the beginning of the introductory press conference, Brondello said, ‘This is the place I wanted to be,’ after talking with the Tempo front office.
She praised Wright Rogers for their partnership and vision as a franchise in Toronto, as they aim to bring a championship to the city.
“There’s a lot of alignment, but in the end, it was about the partnership,” Brondello said. “I knew of Monica [Wright Rogers], just the person she is, and how she goes about her day-to-day. And that was important for me. I thought there was a lot of alignment there. And feeling comfortable in this next opportunity that I was going to take, that was the partnership, the collaboration. It just felt right.”
Wright Rogers explained how she recruited Brondello, who was let go by the New York Liberty in September, based on her coaching experience and resume.
“I had commenced my head coaching search in mid-July, casted a really wide net,” Wright Rogers said. “Number one: I was really focused on a head coach that would allow us to attract free agents. Number two: WNBA experience… as I went through that search, I got through that final list, and something happened in New York, and I took a swing. You would be unwise not to try to land her.”
Cheryl Reeve, Becky Hammon Praise Brondello
During the Minnesota Lynx’s playoff run, head coach Cheryl Reeve told reporters about her reaction to the Liberty moving on from Brondello.
Reeve and Brondello have had rivalries as head coaches over the years, from playoff matchups between the Mercury and Lynx to the 2024 WNBA Finals. Despite competition, they hold mutual respect for one another.
“I think Sandy is a heck of a coach and I think Sandy will land on her feet like she always does,” Reeve said Sept. 23. “I am absolutely thrilled if I am Seattle, Toronto, and Portland, that I was just gifted a championship-level coach. Though we’re competitors, I think a lot of Sandy personally and professionally.”
When asked about the praise from Reeve and Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon—who played under Brondello’s system as a player— Brondello emphasized the importance of that shared respect.
“All of that matters,” Brondello said. “While we compete against each other, and we have for many, many years, there is a mutual respect for what we do and appreciation for how hard our job is. And I think that goes a long way, and that’s really important for me. I want to be the best coach I can be, and I’m going to continue to learn and evolve to be that, but to have the support, obviously, of coaches in this league that goes a long way as well.”
Uncertainty Surrounds Expansion Drafts for Toronto Tempo, Portland Fire Amid CBA Negotiations
As CBA negotiations continue, tensions have arisen between WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and players as they try to reach an agreement before the Nov. 30 deadline.
The bigger question is: when will the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo have expansion drafts to build their rosters?
“Yeah, so obviously we need to get a collective bargaining agreement done before we will probably have those expansion drafts, as well as the draft lottery,” Engelbert said before Game 1 of the 2025 WNBA Finals Oct. 3. So those are the two things we usually do before the calendar year end, leading into the free agency and ultimately the draft in the spring.
“We have given our general managers some guidance on how we’re thinking, but until we get the collective bargaining agreement done, it won’t be finalized as to the format or process. But you can expect, because you saw what we did last year, something similar.”
As the Toronto Tempo prepare for their inaugural 2026 WNBA season, they have found leadership in Wright Rogers as general manager and Brondello as head coach.
