The first time professional goalkeeper Bella Bixby walked into a practice facility designed for a pro-soccer team, it wasn’t actually built for her team.

It was 2019, and renovations to Providence Park caused Bixby’s Portland Thorns to instead practice at a Beaverton facility built for the Timbers.

At the building for professional male athletes, Bixby was surprised to find a state-of-the-art mud room specially designed for players to change shoes directly after coming inside from rainy practices.

“Here they not only had a space to train where they could show up and be themselves and not have to worry about anything but doing their jobs,” Bixby said. “Their cleats were even considered – and I was sticking my stinky cleats in my locker, or in a dark, wet mud room.”

As of this week, Bixby and her Thorns have their very own cleat-changing and storage room, housed in a training facility specially designed for female athletes.

Bixby spoke about her 2019 experience during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday for the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center, the new practice facility for the Thorns and the Portland Fire, the state’s WNBA team.

“Every detail was built around what we need as female athletes, because let’s be honest – we are different than our male counterparts,” Bixby told the crowd. “We have different needs, and they’ve done a really good job cultivating meeting those needs so that we can just show up and be athletes. It seems like not a very big deal, but oftentimes we are exclusively operating in spaces that were designed for men.”

As women’s sports, especially soccer and basketball, grow in visibility, so does the call for more dedicated spaces for athletes and fans alike. It’s become so important that investment in facilities is one of the first things leagues like the NWSL and WNBA look for in potential team owners.

The Kaiser Permanente center in Hillsboro is a promise made good by sibling investors Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. The pair runs Raj Sports, owners of the Thorns and Fire and the investment firm that led the way in building the region’s first dual women’s sports team practice facility.

It also marks a clear contrast with other sports team owners in the state.

Raj Sports investments in Oregon come as the new owner of the state’s NBA team, Tom Dundon, has laid off staff. Dundon is also seeking millions in public funding to renovate the city-owned Moda Center, where the Trail Blazers and Fire play. Many are concerned Dundon could try to move the Blazers out of Portland if taxpayer money doesn’t fund arena upgrades.

Why a practice facility matters

Women, transgender and nonbinary athletes have historically found support in Oregon – and have continually spoken out about disparities with men’s sports.

“Portland, as we did our research, has long-standing been the global epicenter of women’s sports,” Lisa Bhathal Merage told OPB during Saturday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We’re just doing our part to cement it that way.”

Stretching back to the 1970s, the state was a pioneer in Title IX, the 1970s federal legislation that forced schools to offer equal opportunities for girls to compete in sports as boys had.

More recently, it was a University of Oregon women’s basketball player who put the world on notice for unequal facilities. In 2021, Sedona Prince shared a video on social media showing a well-stocked gym for men competing in the March Madness tournament, followed by one measly free-weight rack in the corner for women’s teams.

The post went viral and helped put training facilities forward as an equity issue in sports.

Shortly after Raj Sports announced it would be returning a WNBA team to Portland in 2026, the investment firm committed to building a training facility. The Kaiser Permanente Performance Center, brought to fruition thanks to a partnership with the major healthcare company, marks a less visible milestone than a sold-out game.

Yet, both community and sports leaders say it marks an important step forward if the state wants to continue as a leader in women’s sports.

Portland grows the game

The unveiling of the Thorns and Fire training facility came during a multi-day gathering of leaders from across the landscape of women’s sports. Raj Sports has branded Portland the “epicenter” of women’s sports and calls the event “Epicenter Week.”

Leaders from Raj Sports, the Fire and the Thorns started the week in North Portland’s Albina neighborhood, meeting with kids and refurbishing youth courts and fields in partnership with the 1803 Fund.

On Thursday, an invite-only event at Nike World Headquarters brought some of the biggest names in women’s sports to the state.

At each event, the importance of access to appropriate training facilities was underscored. NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman told a crowded ballroom that her league was never going to reach its maximum potential until it addressed the infrastructure.

Now, having dedicated practice spaces is becoming the standard in U.S. professional soccer.

“We’re now at the point where close to three-quarters of our teams have purpose-built or are building purpose-built training facilities,” Berman said. “That is unheard of in all of women’s sports.”

Looking ahead

The Bhathal family has a natural ally when it comes to investing in women’s sports facilities in Oregon: Nike. The Beaverton-based footwear giant will equip the Thorns and Fire training facility and will share decades of research on athlete performance with the teams.

The performance center also boasts two full-sized soccer pitches, including one with turf identical to Providence Park, and two courts, one that mimics the look and feel of the Moda Center.

Locker rooms were designed after consulting with Fire and Thorns players, from what type of showerheads they should have to how hair and body care products should be stored.

“This is also a space that doesn’t just support us as athletes, but as people,” Bixby said at the building’s opening. “My daughter is over here in the crowd, Ruby, and I know that I can walk into this facility and feel supported as not just an athlete, but as a mother.”

Bixby highlighted the family spaces at the new facility where she can bring her daughter to be taken care of while she’s training. It’s something that she’s grateful for – but Bixby said she hopes athletes who come after her will expect the same level of resources.

“So many incredible athletes built this team’s success and will never get to experience something like this,” Bixby said. “But I am so, so grateful that the next generation of Thorns will never know anything different.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/08/22/training-facility-for-two-major-oregon-womens-sports-teams-opens-in-hillsboro/