The Dream are moving their first two WNBA Finals home games to State Farm Arena, after negotiations with the Hawks, the league office and television networks led to the change of a game date and start times.
Instead of playing Game 3 of the Finals at 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena on Oct. 22 — costing the team and the league office a significant amount of net gate revenue — the Dream and Valkyries will instead play on Oct. 21 at 8pm ET at 17,044-seat State Farm Arena. That arena was unavailable Oct. 22 due to a Sombr concert.
To accommodate Game 4 on Saturday, Oct. 24, the Hawks agreed to move their start time for a home game against the Rockets back from 8pm to 8:30pm ET, allowing the Dream and Valkyries to play earlier that day at 1pm ET — a rare WNBA-NBA doubleheader.
Game 3 will air on USA Network and CNBC and stream on Peacock, while Game 4 will still air on NBC/Peacock.
“We are grateful for the efforts made by numerous stakeholders, including the Dream, the Valkyries, the Hawks, State Farm Arena, and NBC Sports and USA Sports,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. “The change of venue dramatically expands the seating capacity and ensures that the Dream will be able to provide an extraordinary atmosphere for the first WNBA Finals game to be played in the Atlanta market since 2013.”
The Hawks and Dream — who will play their full schedule in State Farm Arena starting next season — have separate ownership groups, which is why the move entailed a more complex negotiation. Not only that, an appalled Valkyries owner Joe Lacob said he chimed in and lobbied both Engelbert and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to intervene.
“I put quite a bit of pressure on the commissioner of the NBA & the WNBA,” Lacob told the Associated Press Tuesday. “I felt, look, it’s not really about us, it’s about the league. The look would not be too good to have Ballhalla & 18,000 fans here [at Chase Center] and 3,500 over there.”
The only precedent to this Dream-Hawks predicament had been two Mercury-Suns conflicts during the 2021 playoffs, which led to NBA-WNBA doubleheaders during the W semifinals and finals. But, in that case, the Mercury and Suns shared the same owner, Robert Sarver.
In this Atlanta scenario, it took maneuvering from multiple groups and stakeholders, with Larry Gottesdiener, the Dream’s majority owner, saying in a statement, “This is what the players and the fans deserve.”
The Hawks are owned by Tony Ressler, who ended up acquiescing. Hawks President of Business Enterprise and Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Saltzman said in a statement, “Playing for a championship is special, and we want the Dream to feel the full support of the city during this amazing run.”
The Dream and Hawks, however, did not reveal their solution for Game 6 of the Finals, if necessary, on Thursday Oct. 29 — a night the Hawks are currently scheduled to play the Cavaliers at State Farm Arena at 7pm. As of now, a Finals game is scheduled for that same evening at 8pm.
Either way, the irony of a Dream-Valkyries Finals matchup is almost beyond comprehension from a business standpoint. In 2025, according to league data obtained by SBJ, the Valkyries led the WNBA in average tickets sold at 17,000+, while the Dream were second lowest at 3,300 (ahead of only the Mystics). The Valkyries also led the league in average gate receipts with $1.5M, while the Dream were dead last at $222,000. Now, here they are in the 2026 championship series.
Tickets for Games 3 and 4 of the WNBA Finals will go on sale to the general public Friday at 10am ET at atlantadream.com.