{"id":780106,"date":"2026-07-23T15:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780106\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:54:08","slug":"womens-sports-practice-facilities-are-booming-but-headwinds-remain-for-venues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780106\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s sports practice facilities are booming, but headwinds remain for venues"},"content":{"rendered":"

A statue honoring WNBA great Lisa Leslie will be unveiled Sept. 20 outside Crypto.com Arena, home of the L.A. Sparks. <\/p>\n

That kind of permanence would seemingly tie the Sparks to the arena, better known as home to the Lakers, Kings and the Grammys, forever. But the Sparks\u2019 lease only runs through 2029. <\/p>\n

I recently caught up with Sparks President Stacy Johns and Tim Katt, who co-leads Transwestern\u2019s Sports and Entertainment practice, to get an update on the WNBA team\u2019s practice facility project (which Katt\u2019s company is involved with). During that conversation, we began talking about the issues that women\u2019s pro sports teams still face as tenants in their venues.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s training facility boom<\/a> is driven in part by those teams\u2019 lack of control over the venues where they play their games. That\u2019s changing slowly in the NWSL \u2014 a 12,000-seat stadium can be cheaper to build than an arena \u2014 but tenancy is still most teams\u2019 reality. And that\u2019s fine for the majority; building, operating and maintaining a financially viable venue is a huge undertaking carrying significant risk.<\/p>\n

But as more women\u2019s teams own and control practice facilities, and if league and team valuations continue growing, the pressure on future lease negotiations between women\u2019s teams and their landlords should increase. <\/p>\n

Scheduling is paramount<\/p>\n

The Sparks play in one of the world\u2019s busiest arenas. Behind the Kings and Lakers, they\u2019re third in the venue\u2019s pecking order, and maybe fourth if you consider the venue\u2019s world-leading concert and entertainment-events business. And that\u2019s even after the Clippers left for Intuit Dome<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the primary issues that should be under the microscope is scheduling and date availability,\u201d Johns said. \u201cThese venues historically have been able to make a lot more money on concerts or other men\u2019s events, but that\u2019s changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing games at better times of day<\/a> on better days of the week has everything to do with where a WNBA or NWSL team sits in the venue\u2019s hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Johns was an executive with the Indianapolis Colts, who are Lucas Oil Stadium\u2019s lone tenant, an obviously ideal scenario. At her next two stops, Angel City and Bay FC, the NWSL club was the No. 2 tenant in an MLS-controlled stadium. But many WNBA teams belong to NBA ownership groups, some of whom are tenants in their buildings (Detroit, for example). <\/p>\n

I still wonder if the WNBA especially wouldn\u2019t be better served expanding (when financially viable) into markets without NBA or NHL teams. The WNBA team might be an arena\u2019s top priority in places, like \u2014 and I\u2019ve plucked this out of thin air \u2014 San Diego or Birmingham, Ala.? <\/p>\n

Women\u2019s teams are competing with live music<\/p>\n

In the 1990s and early 2000s, an arena might host four or five concerts a year. Women\u2019s sports teams playing in major arenas now compete with Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish for relevancy in a venue\u2019s business. Johns acknowledged the status importance of playing at Crypto.com Arena, but the building\u2019s owner, AEG, owns the Kings and is also a global live music promoter.<\/p>\n

\u201cStacy\u2019s not just working around the Kings and the Lakers, but also if Harry Styles is in town, and he wants to do a residency,\u201d said Katt. \u201cThat\u2019s a huge shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once MLS moves to the global soccer calendar, the NWSL season will no longer overlap with the men\u2019s league. But clubs like Gotham FC, which announced last week that it\u2019s moving to Etihad Park when it opens in 2027, will instead contend with soccer-specific stadiums\u2019 summer concert schedules. That was one of the perks of the MLS calendar change; opening a clear run in June and July for teams to book stadium concerts. <\/p>\n

Financial opportunities<\/p>\n

Most leases that WNBA and NWSL (and other leagues\u2019) teams sign severely limit available sponsorship categories and premium revenue. If women\u2019s teams remain tenants, getting more amenable carve-outs in these two categories will be paramount to reaching overall financial solidity.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have a [building] GM that wants to work with you and be helpful to you, or not? And some of that\u2019s terms,\u201d Johns said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to take a lot of time and there is not a magic bullet to this.\u201d <\/p>\n

Deal length?<\/p>\n

Many women\u2019s pro teams are pursuing long-term arena and stadium leases to signal stability to their organizations, fans and sponsors. But it\u2019s a Catch-22, Johns said, because these agreements can lock teams into situations that within a few years don\u2019t reflect potentially increased franchise value.<\/p>\n

The Sparks extended their Crypto.com Arena lease<\/a> in 2024 for five years, taking them to 2029. Intuit Dome has opened in L.A. since then, which would seemingly give the team more leverage in future negotiations. Would the Sparks take the Lisa Leslie statue with them if they moved? We\u2019ll have to check the lease terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A statue honoring WNBA great Lisa Leslie will be unveiled Sept. 20 outside Crypto.com Arena, home of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-780106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780106","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=780106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}