Portland, OR – RAJ Sports, the ownership group of the Portland Thorns (NWSL) and Portland Fire (WNBA), today announced a landmark partnership with cllct to build the most ambitious women’s sports collectibles ecosystem in the world.
Together, the two franchises will establish best-in-class heritage infrastructure while launching a new era of collecting experiences rooted in storytelling, provenance and community.
“As the global epicenter of women's sports, Portland has always been where women’s sports does not just exist, it leads,” said RAJ Sports Executive Vice President of Commercial Strategy, John Torris. “We strive to lead through authenticity and culture, maximizing our impact as the only group with teams in the WNBA and NWSL. Together with our forward-thinking ownership group and innovative partners at cllct, our collectibles strategy is rooted in honoring our athletes, preserving history, and unlocking unique access and experiences for our fans.”
At the center of the partnership is a unified vision: make Portland the beacon for how women’s sports can preserve history, celebrate athletes, and activate culture through collecting, while building a repeatable blueprint for women’s teams everywhere.
Portland has long been an engine for sport’s most influential ideas – where innovation, identity, and creative expression consistently shape what the rest of the world comes to adopt.
“Women’s sports is building momentum globally, but the collecting ecosystem has not kept pace with the cultural importance of the athletes and the communities behind them,” said Steve Ziff, CEO of cllct.
“This partnership is our line in the sand. We are going to build the infrastructure, the storytelling, and the product innovation that turns moments into history, and history into belonging. Most importantly, we are designing this for the next generation, Gen Z and Gen A collectors, and the parents who will help bring them into the fold. If we do this right in Portland, we help change the trajectory of women’s sports collectability everywhere.”
A Dual-Club Model Designed to Set the Standard
The partnership is built to meet each club where it is, while creating a shared operating system for women’s sports collecting:
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Portland Thorns (legacy reclamation): building a centralized heritage archive, formalizing provenance, and creating new pathways for fans to connect with iconic moments through authenticated objects and story-driven experiences
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Portland Fire (history meets the modern era): unlocking access to team artifacts from the original Fire team that was active from 2000-02, while implementing authenticity-first protocols from day one, capturing “firsts” in real time, and launching 2026 debut season collections and member collections and experiences that establish what a collectible franchise looks like at inception
“This is not about flooding the market with products,” said Darren Rovell, Founder of cllct. “It is about building a credible collecting ecosystem that women’s sports has deserved for a long time."
"Portland is the perfect place to prove what’s possible when you combine authenticity, storytelling, and a fan base that already treats women’s sports like culture. The Thorns and the Fire can help set the standard for the entire industry, and we are excited to build that blueprint together.”
Building The Future Collector, Not Just The Next Drop
The partnership is designed to grow the collector base for women’s sports by meeting fans where they are, with collecting that is both culturally meaningful and genuinely accessible.
Many younger collectors are driven not only by rarity, scarcity, and the thrill of the chase, but by self-expression, identity, and emotion – the feeling of belonging to a team, a player, a moment, and a community.
By building an ecosystem that honors both sets of motivations, the Thorns and the Fire can help define what the next generation of women’s sports collecting looks like, and why it matters.