The Atlanta Dream are moving their two regular-season home games against the Indiana Fever to State Farm Arena, home of the NBA Atlanta Hawks. The games are set for June 21 and Aug. 26.
Atlanta’s regular WNBA venue is Gateway Center Arena, which is the smallest in the league with a capacity of only 3,500 seats. State Farm Arena seats about 19,000.
“Atlanta Dream fans are the best in the WNBA,” team president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in a statement published by the Associated Press. “Their passion and excitement led us to the most sellouts in the league over the last two years and has created a demand for tickets that far outpaces the supply inside our current arena, which is why we wanted to find a way to give more fans access to experience these two games.”
Indiana finished the 2023 season 13-27, but there has been a lot of hype around the Fever since they acquired former Iowa star Caitlin Clark as the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft. The team also has the 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston.
Clark made her WNBA debut on Tuesday, when the Fever suffered a 21-point loss to the Connecticut Sun. Thursday night’s home opener was a 102-66 loss to the New York Liberty. Earlier this year she became the all-time Division I college basketball leading scorer, and during her first game she was aggressive on offense, finishing with 20 points. Like all rookies, she learned there are areas of her game she has to improve, but the learning curve she will go through has not deterred fans from following her.
According to an article published by Forbes ahead of the season, all of the WNBA’s top 10 most expensive regular-season games this year involve the Fever.
Naturally, other teams want to capitalize on this buzz and the Dream is not the only team hosting the Fever in a different arena. The Las Vegas Aces have won the last two WNBA championships and have their own loyal fanbase. They usually play at Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay, which seats 12,000, but for the July 2 game they will host Indiana at T-Mobile Arena, which is one of the NBA Summer League venues that can hold 18,000 fans.
The Sparks tipped off their season in Long Beach because of renovations at Crypto.com Arena. However, the team is moving back to downtown Los Angeles for the games against the Fever on May 24, Dallas on May 26 and Minnesota on June 5. The current venue at the Long Beach State campus is Walter Pyramid, which seats 5,000. Crypto.com has a capacity of 19,067 for basketball games.
The Washington Mystics also moved their June 7 against the Fever game to Capital One Arena, home of the NBA’s Wizards. However, Indiana is not the only team having this effect in the league. The Mystics are also moving their June 6 game against the Chicago Sky, the team that drafted LSU’s Angel Reese and South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso.
This is all part of a larger movement that shows the growth of the WNBA. The Wings saw record attendance in 2023, and starting in 2026, they will be relocating from Arlington, Texas, to Dallas Memorial Arena due to the surge in popularity.
