{"id":218095,"date":"2025-10-16T20:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218095\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T20:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:04:07","slug":"chicagos-united-center-to-host-2026-wnba-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218095\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago&#8217;s United Center to host 2026 WNBA All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/voepel_m.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Michael VoepelOct 16, 2025, 03:54 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Michael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women&#8217;s college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women&#8217;s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 WNBA All-Star Game will be played at Chicago&#8217;s United Center on Saturday July 25, the league announced Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>It will be the second time Chicago has hosted the game. It was there in 2022, but held at Wintrust Arena, the home arena of the WNBA&#8217;s <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"3b4b0e25-5d0c-1ce2-ab25-580273be43e4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/team\/_\/name\/chi\/chicago-sky\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Sky<\/a>. The Sky has played some regular-season games at United Center, including this past season.<\/p>\n<p>United Center, home of the NBA&#8217;s <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"e588ccf1-ba03-ea43-c34c-9a9c8d1895ca\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/chi\/chicago-bulls\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bulls<\/a> and NHL&#8217;s <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"e1595aca-83a9-f0b3-5621-0ef78e76d097\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/chi\/chicago-blackhawks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Blackhawks<\/a>, has a larger capacity: about 20,900 for basketball compared to Wintrust&#8217;s approximate 10,380.<\/p>\n<p>However, Wintrust will still be involved in All-Star festivities as the site of the 3-Point Contest and WNBA Skills Challenge, which will be on Friday, July 24. WNBA Live, the league&#8217;s interactive fan festival, will be held at Chicago&#8217;s McCormick Place during All-Star weekend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The WNBA is thrilled to bring AT&amp;T WNBA All-Star back to Chicago, which will undoubtedly deliver unforgettable competition and community outreach,&#8221; WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. &#8220;Together with the Chicago Sky, we look forward to celebrating the game&#8217;s brightest stars, engaging WNBA fans around the world, and showcasing the energy of one of basketball&#8217;s most iconic cities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It will be the second consecutive Midwestern All-Star Game for the WNBA; <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"bfef1bdd-c2d1-310d-dd9f-645b90575da9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/team\/_\/name\/ind\/indiana-fever\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Indiana<\/a> hosted the event for the first time earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Chicago Sky are thrilled to welcome the 2026 WNBA All-Star game back to Chicago,&#8221; Sky CEO and president Adam Fox said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t wait to build on the success of the previous All-Star game and celebrate the explosive growth of the league by showcasing the WNBA&#8217;s biggest stars on a world-class stage.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael VoepelOct 16, 2025, 03:54 PM ET CloseMichael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-218095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}