The explosive growth of women\u2019s sports has been a well-documented phenomenon over the last four years.<\/p>\n
But when Chicago hosts the 2026 WNBA All-Star Weekend<\/a> in July, Kara Bachman \u2014 the executive director of the Chicago Sports Commission \u2014 wants the city\u2019s investors and businesses to do more than just cheer from the sidelines.<\/p>\n \u201cDo a little more,\u201d Bachman said Friday during a launch event in Fulton Market. \u201cPut your money where your mouth is.\u201d<\/p>\n The league\u2019s All-Star festivities will return to Chicago for the second time from July 23-25, with the game scheduled for Saturday, July 25 at the United Center. Those dates are more than six months away \u2014 but planning already has begun for a cornerstone of the WNBA calendar.<\/p>\n The latest step of that process took place Friday in a launch event headlined by Gov. JB Pritzker, mayor Brandon Johnson and part-owner Dwyane Wade as the Sky and the city made their pitch to local investors and business leaders to take part in the weekend.<\/p>\n According to a report by Front Office Sports, Chicago was the only city to bid for hosting the 2026 All-Star weekend. The reticence from other teams? Hosting duties are split between the host team and the league, making the weekend an expensive affair as the standard for logistics such as hotels, parties and activations rise meteorically with the sport as a whole.<\/p>\n Sky co-owner and operating chair Nadia Rawlinson spearheaded the pitch for Chicago to land the event. She said the Sky are embracing the responsibility as an opportunity to highlight Chicago as a whole. While some features \u2014 a welcoming event, sponsor activations featuring star players, an invite-only party organized in collaboration with the players union \u2014 will be familiar from past iterations, Friday\u2019s launch outlined a series of plans and initiatives to expand the event\u2019s footprint.<\/p>\n This includes a series of VIP roundtable dinners in the months leading up to the event and an innovation summit to highlight and support advancements in women\u2019s sports. During All-Star weekend, Rawlinson said the Sky will host a radio row to highlight prominent sports and business shows. The Sky also plan to partner with the city for a series of community initiatives around the weekend, including a project to add the WNBA 3-point line to basketball courts at every public park in Chicago.<\/p>\n Throughout the weekend, Rawlinson emphasized that the Sky and the WNBA will seek to highlight the diversity of the league\u2019s fanbase.<\/p>\n \u201cThe WNBA is (a place) where everyone can find their person,\u201d Rawlinson said. \u201cThey can find connection. This is a place where typically people who don\u2019t have a natural community can find community. This is our chance to highlight that.\u201d<\/p>\n Chicago hosted the 2022 WNBA All-Star Game<\/a> at Wintrust Arena \u2014 home of the Sky. For the first time in franchise history, the team last season played two regular-season games at the United Center<\/a>. The home of the NBA\u2019s Bulls and NHL\u2019s Blackhawks has nearly double the capacity of Wintrust\u2019s 10,380.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The explosive growth of women\u2019s sports has been a well-documented phenomenon over the last four years. But when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[157,198289,38388,198288,99,58548,434,18121],"class_list":{"0":"post-413560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson","10":"tag-dwyane-wade","11":"tag-illinois-gov-jb-pritzker","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-center","14":"tag-wnba","15":"tag-wnba-all-star-weekend"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}