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It’s very Portland to cheer on women’s sports. It’s even more Portland to do it in a sweet vintage jersey. Throwback Portland Fire gear from the team’s 2000–2002 run in the Rose City has always been for sale at Back to the Basket, an all-things-basketball vintage shop that opened on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in 2020. Think Portland Fire practice jerseys, golf polos and game-worn Jackie Stiles sneakers.
Trouble is, now that the Portland Fire is back in town, the shop can’t keep any of it in stock anymore.
“It flies off the shelf,” says Back to the Basket owner Troy Douglass. “We’re completely sold out as we speak.”
A peek at eBay last week showed pickings there were equally scarce: some vintage lapel pins, posters and ticket stubs, but no apparel. More Portland Fire & Rescue T-shirts came up in a search than anything for the basketball team.
The reboot of the franchise this spring is behind the surge in demand. (Hint to longtime Portlanders: Now is a good time to check the back of your closet for Portland Fire gear to sell.) The only thing Douglass can see pushing demand beyond this would be a deep playoff run.
There’s no precedent for that: When the Portland Fire folded in 2002, they were the only WNBA team that ever closed up shop before making the playoffs. They also tied for the shortest lifespan of a WNBA team, with the erstwhile Miami Sol, which also folded in ’02. (It’s not all sad stories: Jackie Stiles was the 2001 Rookie of the Year!) The team shuttered for financial reasons in 2002 when then-Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen declined to buy the Fire, and other potential buyers—including former Blazer Clyde Drexler—fell through, too.
Douglass never let the Portland Fire dream die. He remembers going to Fire games as a kid and even wrote a persuasive essay in eighth grade arguing for equal pay for WNBA players.
“We’re real ones,” he says.
