Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers flexes on the bench as she celebrates a basket by Li Yueru during the second half of a WNBA basketball game against the Phoenix Mercury at College Park Center on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Arlington, Texas.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
Before Dallas Wings home games, you might find Andrew Zimmermann sporting a rather conspicuous piece of head gear.
“I have a big hat that I had made. It says #WingsUp,” Zimmermann said. “When the black lights go on at the game and you see a hat shining, that’s me.”
Zimmermann, a Richardson native, started attending Wings games with his wife and two daughters in 2024, after the Dallas Mavericks’ NBA Finals run.
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Mavericks games had become a favorite family outing, and the Zimmermanns craved more hoops. Avery and Parker, now 13 and 11, quickly became enamored with the Wings, who moved to North Texas from Tulsa ahead of the 2016 season.
The girls started playing basketball and signed up for camps hosted by the Wings and Mavericks. The Zimmermanns rarely miss Wings home games, and they have at least one more to look forward to in 2026.
Dallas (27-17) has made the playoffs for the first time since 2023, playing Game 1 of its first round series against the Golden State Valkyries on Sunday.
“It’s exploding for sure. There are people asking us a lot about what it’s like going to the games,” Zimmermann said. “We’ve taken friends and they’ve all become fans.”
Avery (top left), Andrew, Sara and Parker Zimmermann (center) are pictured at a Dallas Wings game at College Park Center in Arlington.
Andrew Zimmermann/Courtesy
Women’s basketball has been on the rise, and the boom has reached North Texas. Attendance, viewership, community engagement and nearly every other metric has skyrocketed for the Wings over the last several years, thanks in part to the arrival of superstar Paige Bueckers in 2025.
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“Whether it’s walking down the street, at the airport, at a grocery store, I see more people with Wings gear,” Wings CEO and managing partner Greg Bibb told The Dallas Morning News. “You feel it everyday.”
The growth of the women’s game was born out of a collection of watershed moments.
Locked inside with little to do, sports fans started tuning in to the WNBA more during the days of the pandemic in 2020. The following year, NIL hit the NCAA, giving women’s basketball players more visibility than ever. Brittney Griner’s Russian detainment brought more eyes to the league in 2022, and the Caitlin Clark phenomenon of 2024 catapulted the WNBA into the mainstream. But the growth isn’t done yet.
Zimmermann admits many North Texans still don’t know about the Wings, be it because they haven’t seen the team on TV or haven’t been to a game at UT-Arlington’s College Park Center.
But as the Wings thrive on the court and prepare for their move to American Airlines Center in 2027, maybe that’s about to change.
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Business is booming
The Wings expect to play at AAC only temporarily. In April 2024, the team signed a 15-year, $19 million use agreement with the city to move to a renovated Memorial Auditorium by the start of the 2026 season. Construction delays resulting from the city’s bid to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup’s International Broadcast Center at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center set up a 2027 move-in date that city officials have pushed to 2028.
Hosting games at AAC was always a contingency plan under the 2024 agreement with Dallas, which guaranteed use of the venue if the city couldn’t deliver a renovated Memorial Auditorium in time for the start of the 2026 season. The team played three games at American Airlines Center this summer, an increase from two last year, and averaged 16,659 fans. Dallas’ last of three games at AAC, a 91-85 win over the Indiana Fever on Aug. 20, drew a sold-out crowd of 20,297.
Avery and Parker Zimmermann (from left) pose outside of American Airlines Center before a Dallas Wings game.
Andrew Zimmermann/Courtesy
Bibb said he expects the Wings to sell out targeted games at the venue next summer, with an average crowd of 12,500.
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Since 2016, the Wings have played the bulk of their home games at College Park Center, which seats about 7,000. Bibb said the Wings sold out 18 of the team’s 19 regular-season home games at the venue in 2026. The Wings have sold out season ticket memberships for the last three seasons, and since 2023, the organization is up 285% in total ticket revenue.
Through Aug. 31, average WNBA game attendance was up 20% from the 2025 WNBA regular season and more than doubled the figure from just four years ago.
Merchandise sales have also grown for the league and the Wings, with the team being up 258% as of Sept. 21 in that category since 2023, when it sold merchandise in five different countries.
“This year, 33 countries and all 50 states,” Bibb said.
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Wings brand partnerships are up 234% since 2024 and 71.3% since 2025. Impressions across social media platforms are up 778% since 2024. Engagements are up 1,087%.
WNBA viewership also went up, with the 2026 regular season averaging 793,485 viewers and the telecast count totaling 164 through Aug. 30. The league averaged 168,815 viewers and had just 73 telecasts in 2022.
The Wings ranked second in the WNBA behind the Fever in nationally televised games this season with 36, and averaged over 1.5 million viewers on ABC and CBS per broadcast.
During a fireside chat with outgoing WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert last month, Bibb highlighted that national visibility and said, “Thank you, Paige.”
The Paige Bueckers effect
Bueckers, the UConn product picked No. 1 overall by the Wings in 2025, has probably never heard of Gaspé, a coastal community in eastern Quebec.
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But Axelle Ste-Croix, a 12-year-old who hails from the small city in the Canadian province, has heard all about Bueckers.
On The Sports Network, Canada’s version of ESPN, she started coming across Wings games.
“She really somehow was drawn to Paige,” said Nancy Ste-Croix, Axelle’s great-aunt. “As far as her star power, her tenacity, her work ethic. Her whole image really drew Axelle in.”
Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers slipped hands with teammates as she’s introducted at College Park Center in Arlington, May 28, 2026. The Wings were facing the Las Vegas Aces.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Axelle’s admiration for Bueckers opened her up to the world of the WNBA, which expanded to Canada this year and hosted a game between the Wings and the Toronto Tempo in Montreal this past July.
Her parents looked for basketball camps nearby but couldn’t find a suitable one. Nancy saw the perfect opportunity for her niece’s 12th birthday: a trip to the Wings’ summer camp in Texas.
After signing Axelle up, Nancy put together an AI video and presented it to her niece.
“It’s Paige talking and naming her, saying ‘Hey Axelle, for your birthday, you’re coming down to my summer camp,’” Nancy said.
Bueckers, 24, has not only been key to the rise of the Wings in North Texas, but also women’s basketball as a whole.
The 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year boasts an ever-growing sponsorship portfolio that includes Gatorade, Nike, Verizon and DoorDash. She has more than 7 million followers across Instagram and TikTok and was the first women’s basketball star of the social media highlight generation. From Minnesota high school sensation to UConn phenom and now WNBA standout, Bueckers has been a poster child for how athletes build their brands in the digital age.
The crowds follow her and 2026 No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd — also a popular player — wherever the Wings go.
Dallas, due to the small relative capacity of the College Park Center, ranks 13th in the WNBA in home attendance. But it ranks second behind the Fever in away attendance. It also ranked second in away attendance in 2025, when Bueckers was drafted.
“Everywhere we go, we see a ton of Dallas jerseys and merchandise,” Bibb said. “A lot of that obviously No. 5, No. 35.”
Community impact
The women’s basketball boom hasn’t just been good for business. It’s having an impact on young girls across North Texas.
Dallas-area resident LaKisha Howard has signed up 9-year-old daughter Rylee for multiple Wings camps.
“They’ve really become meaningful memories for our family,” Howard said.
LaKisha and Rylee Howard pose at center court after a Dallas Wings game at College Park Center in Arlington.
LaKisha Howard/Courtesy
The Wings started offering youth programming in 2023, hosting one event with 60 athletes. In 2026, the Wings have hosted over 10 events with more than 800 athletes.
“Our team as a whole is building something special together, and if you look closer at who our players are as individuals, they are fantastic role models and are relatable for young athletes,” Madison Montgomery, director of youth programs for the Wings, told The News.
The Mavericks’ Mavs Academy hosted its first all girls camp, a virtual one in March 2021, with the Girls Scouts after noticing a large number of girls aged 9-14 dropping out of sports. The organization started Girls Empowered by Mavericks as a response.
KJ Grassi, Mavs Academy manager, told The News the upswing in popularity of women’s sports has introduced more girls to basketball. GEM participation grew from 500 girls in 2021 to over 5,500 in 2026.
Howard, who attends most Wings home games with her family, said it helps Rylee to see strong, talented women as role models.
Just as recently as two years ago, when Howard asked Rylee what she wanted to be when she grows up, her daughter would say a firefighter or some other career path.
“But now, it’s a WNBA player,” Howard said.