Greg Bibb, who runs the one professional sports team that actually wants to be in downtown Dallas, has bitten his tongue so hard and so often I’m surprised he hasn’t chewed through the thing by now.
City officials have spent years promising the CEO and managing partner of the WNBA’s Dallas Wings the stars and the moon — chiefly, a downtown home in a remade Memorial Auditorium and an Oak Cliff practice facility. And so far, all he has to show for it is an unexpected bill for $27 million and a calendar hold for sometime in August, when Bibb is scheduled to again meet with the same people at City Hall who make and break promises like it’s their business model.
“We are patient,” Bibb told me last week. “And we have been patient.”
Calling that an understatement would be an understatement.
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Bibb and I spoke on Thursday. Three days earlier, he’d been to City Hall to meet with City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, Assistant City Manager Robin Bentley and Convention and Event Services Director Rosa Fleming. Bibb had been pushing for that meeting for months to find out the status of Memorial Auditorium, which the city once promised would be ready by no later than March 1, 2026, yet still looks like it did on March 1, 1976.
Last week’s meeting was their first sitdown since December, save for some recent discussions about sticking the Wings in the American Airlines Center next season given Memorial’s … vintage status, let’s say. From the sound of it, the most they accomplished was setting another meeting some time after Tolbert presents the city’s budget to the City Council.
A new rendering of the Dallas Wings practice facility in Oak Cliff, which the team had to take over from the city shortly after last September’s groundbreaking.
Dallas Wings
“We’re patient,” Bibb said, again, like it’s his mantra. “But we are growing more concerned and frustrated with the city meeting its contractual obligation to what we’re going to call our long-term home, Dallas Memorial Auditorium. And the delays continue to mount.”
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I asked Fleming how the meeting went and whether they’d settled on a timeline and a price tag for Memorial’s redo, which is likely to cost upwards of $200 million. A city spokesperson responded only that they had a “positive and productive meeting” and that “the conversation reflected the strong partnership between the City and the Wings as well as creating new opportunities for residents and fans across Dallas. We look forward to meeting again soon to continue discussions regarding Memorial Auditorium and future collaboration opportunities.”
That reads like something you say about a stranger you’re flirting with, not a partner to whom you committed four years ago. And it sure isn’t something you say about the one team that’s actually trying to steer a moving truck toward downtown.
This is fast becoming a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to partner with the city. On anything.
I suggested to Bibb it’s starting to feel like this isn’t about when the Wings are moving to Memorial Auditorium, which was intended to be part of the now-delayed convention center do-over, but about if that’s ever going to happen.
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Dallas Wings general manager Curt Miller, left, and CEO Greg Bibb, right, with reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year and current All-Star Paige Bueckers. This photo was taken in September, when Bueckers was recognized for breaking several franchise rookie records before a game against the Phoenix Mercury at College Park Center in Arlington.
Staff photo/The Dallas Morning News
“At this time we remain committed to honoring the deal we signed in 2024,” he said, sounding more like a man who’d signed a peace treaty than a contract to move a basketball team from the University of Texas at Arlington to Dallas. “But we think it’s time we understand how the city is going to honor their part of the agreement — and if they can’t or won’t or don’t want to honor an agreement they’re contractually obligated to, we need to understand the alternative they’re offering.”
Which, for now and maybe forever, appears to be the American Airlines Center, which, you have to admit, solves a lot of problems for a city that’s going to be without an arena tenant come 2031.
Seven of the WNBA’s 15 teams play in NBA arenas. For three games this season, that includes the Wings, who just planted a billboard in Uptown promoting three upcoming games at the American Airlines Center, starting with Sunday’s game against the Chicago Sky.
But there are problems with the AAC, beginning with the fact the Wings would be the fourth tenant, behind the Mavs and Stars and other events. And there’s no guarantee it survives beyond the Mavs and Stars’ departures. Oh — and there’s also no locker room for Wings players. Bibb says building one will cost around $3 million. And the city that can’t make payroll has yet to commit to covering the cost.
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Memorial Auditorium in downtown Dallas, next door to City Hall, was supposed to have been renovated by now for the Wings’ home arena. So far, it still looks like it did when the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Jackson Five played there.
Staff photo/The Dallas Morning News
It’s also not what the Wings were promised when they signed a deal with Dallas that offered them complete run of Memorial during the WNBA season and numerous revenue opportunities including merchandise and concessions sales and a piece of the naming rights. The city also promised the Wings an attached practice facility, which the city eventually shoved to Oak Cliff then pawned off on the Wings to finish and help pay for when it became clear the city couldn’t do the $81 million job.
“We have punted in 2026, in 2027 and now, it appears, in 2028 — three years we will not be in the building or experiencing the economic benefits we signed up for in 2024,” Bibb said. “At some point we need to examine from a bigger perspective where we are on the relationship and move forward together. The impact the delays have on our business have become meaningful. I’ve been patient, but there are multiple dynamics at play, and at some point we need answers — and I need solutions.”
The Wings and city officials began discussing a move to Dallas in 2022, shortly after the mayor established the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Recruitment and Retention, not yet a Stars-crossed punch line. The deal was sealed at the April 24, 2024, City Council meeting, which the mayor kicked off by noting “what an exciting day this is for Dallas” and how “it’s just a perfect time for us to do this.”
Tolbert told the council that if they approved the deal, beginning in 2026 the Wings would become “an anchor for the Dallas Memorial Auditorium,” which was used maybe a dozen times a year. Fleming added at that April 2024 meeting that getting the Wings to Memorial is “an opportunity to get additional businesses and additional teams to decide that Dallas should be their home.”
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The Dallas Wings have planted a new billboard visible to drivers entering downtown Dallas, which is where the Wings were supposed to be playing by now.
Robert Wilonsky/Staff photographer
Yet the Wings are no closer to a permanent downtown Dallas home than they were when the former WNBA expansion team debuted as the Detroit Shock in 1998.
The city, too, promised to build the Wings a practice facility, also by the start of the 2026 season now nearing the halfway point. Like, promised. Pledged. Vowed. “We want you to hold us accountable,” Tolbert told Bibb at the September 2025 groundbreaking at Joey Georgusis Park. Within weeks, the city was asking the Wings to take over construction, which is now well underway in far west Oak Cliff.
I asked Bibb what that means now, to hold the city accountable.
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“What’s the alternative?” he said. “We’re invested in this. Yes, I am frustrated. Yes, it’s disappointing. And, yes, I am growing impatient. But you have to do your best and work with what you’ve got and find a solution.”
Hey, man. That’s just life in Dallas in 2026.