Established in 1903 and known briefly as the Browns and then the Giants (and following local teams called the Pioneers, the Webfeet, the Webfoots, the Green Gages, and more), our Pacific Coast League team adopted the Beavers name in 1906. Various teams would use the name until 2010, after which the then-Beavers left town before their stadium was renovated for soccer.

The former New Westminster Royals became our first pro hockey team in 1914, playing in the Ice Hippodrome in Northwest. The team didn’t stay long, but the name was used for a new team in the ’20s (above) that would also be known as the Buckaroos in the ’30s and the Eagles in the ’40s.

This wasn’t the only local Japanese club to ply the West Coast in the years before World War II and the imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent, but nearly a century later it’s the most famous, thanks to a retro apparel line from Seattle’s Ebbets Field Flannels.

Also called the Roses and owned by sprinter Jesse Owens, this team played in the short-lived all-Black West Coast Baseball Association.

While there were Buckaroo teams in the early twentieth century, too, it was the 1960s Western Hockey League version, promoted by future Blazers impresario Harry Glickman, that had the best logo of a cowboy in ice skates atop a horse also wearing ice skates. Playing in the then-new Memorial Coliseum, the Bucks were league champs three times in their 1960–1974 run.

Our NBA expansion team was born in 1970 and became league champs in 1977, the year we became Rip City. Since then, we’ve somehow made it through the Drexler era, the Roy era, and the Lillard era without a repeat—but it’s only the 10th-longest title drought in the league.

Subject of the 2014 documentary The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Bing Russell’s indie team attracted crowds with fun promotions and major personality.

Part of the very short-lived World Football League, the Civic Stadium–based team changed its name to the Thunder in its second and final year.

This expansion team in the North American Soccer League lasted till 1982, but the name and axe logo would be resurrected in 1985 and again in 2001 in the United Soccer Leagues, before reaching Major League Soccer status in 2011. The current version won the MLS Cup in 2015.

The former Edmonton Oil Kings junior hockey team came to town in 1976 and remain in a tie with the Thorns as Portland’s winningest current franchise, with three championships.

This Class A baseball team came from Bend to play six seasons before heading to the Tri-Cities to make way for a return of the Beavers.

Beginning play the year before the WNBA, the Power and its American Basketball League lasted only two seasons.

Portland’s first Arena Football League team relocated from Memphis (the Pharaohs) and moved to Oklahoma City (the Wranglers) after three seasons.

The WNBA team would showcase Sylvia Crawley and 2001 Rookie of the Year Jackie Stiles in its three seasons at the Rose Garden. After the league transferred the team franchises to the owners of their NBA counterparts in 2003, Blazers owner Paul Allen decided not to maintain the team and a local bid involving former Blazer Clyde Drexler was declined.

This indoor lacrosse team played four seasons in the Philly-based National Lacrosse League.

One of eight founding teams in the National Women’s Soccer League (and the only one left that hasn’t moved or rebranded, though that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some serious problems), the Thorns have won the NWSL championship thrice, in the inaugural 2013 season, 2017, and 2022. Marquee players have included a homegrown goalkeeper and the most prolific international goal scorer in the world.

Our second Arena Football League team, which made its home in the Moda Center, also played just three seasons (it was known as the Steel in 2016). The league itself folded in 2019.

It’s not officially a pro team, but we just can’t resist a pickle. This collegiate wood-bat summer team, based at Walker Stadium in Lents Park (with a team store downtown), has fermented spinoffs the Gherkins and the Rosebuds, an homage to the Negro Leagues team of 1946. Its mascot, Dillon T. Pickle, reeks of good-natured inappropriateness and international intrigue.

Founded in 2022 as the Nitro, Oregon’s only pro men's Ultimate team rebranded as the Steel in 2025 and was joined by a women’s/nonbinary team, the Soar, both playing at the UO Oregon campus in Northeast Portland’s Concordia neighborhood.

This USL League Two team, which called Concordia home in its first season before moving to Lents Park this year, is part of the marketing genius–powered Pickles empire. While the team is coached by former Timber Jorge Villafaña, its most recognizable figure is definitely mascot Saucy T. Sausage, a grill-marked wiener with more wieners spouting from his head, like a haggard Medusa who lost most of her snakes in a truck stop fire.

Annnd they’re back. Roughly a quarter century after the Fire was snuffed out, the ridiculousness of Portland—Portland!—not having a WNBA team finally got to be too much. The city is home to the first-ever sports bar dedicated to showing women’s games, for goodness’ sake. The expansion team's sold-out inaugural game on May 9 boasted the second-largest home opener crowd in the WNBA's three decades of existence.  

Part of the USL W League and a sister team of the Portland Bangers, the Cherry Bombs face off at Lents Park against a half dozen Puget Sound–area squads. With a name inspired by a 50-year-old Runaways hit and Planned Parenthood secured as a jersey sponsor, it's no surprise that a Grrrl Power night is one of the promotions in the Bombs' first season, which kicks off May 17.