A big weekend is ahead in Chicago, with major events planned at Wrigley Field, the United Center and Soldier Field.<\/p>\n
For those heading downtown, if you’re planning to take the Kennedy Expressway, keep in mind the Ohio Street feeder ramp into River North will be closed all weekend, starting Friday night.<\/p>\n
So expect a good bit of traffic, with large crowds likely at venues across the city.<\/p>\n
With the WNBA in town, some of the best professional and youth basketball is on display.<\/p>\n
Inside the McCormick Place is the Nike Tournament of Champions, which features elite girls basketball teams from around the country, showcasing the future of women’s basketball ahead of All-Star Weekend.<\/p>\n
“You come to events like this, and it\u2019s just like girls supporting girls,” one attendee said.<\/p>\n
It’s a big moment for girls and women’s sports, reflecting the surging popularity of women’s basketball.<\/p>\n
The WNBA All-Star Game is Saturday night at the United Center, featuring Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese – both household names as the league celebrates its 30th season.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s a big thing, women\u2019s sports is getting now is respect, and it\u2019s long overdue,” a supporter said.<\/p>\n
Meantime, on the North Side, a much more whimsical sport takes center stage.<\/p>\n
The Savannah Bananas are making their debut at Wrigley Field for three straight nights of sold-out Banana Ball. Banana Ball itself is a fusion of baseball and live, funky entertainment.<\/p>\n
“They said it was easier to teach a baseball player to dance, than a dancer to play baseball, so that\u2019s why we\u2019re here.”<\/p>\n
NBC Chicago got a look at batting practice, where a line drive on stilts was a small part of the show.<\/p>\n
“Regular baseball is cool and all, add some music and dancing, and it\u2019s a great time,” one individual said.<\/p>\n
The busy weekend extends to Soldier Field with a sea of orange and flora festivities for Colombian pop icon Karol G.<\/p>\n
“Just all party, great vibes,” one fan said.<\/p>\n
Karol G sold out Soldier Field for two straight nights, drawing huge crowds and a lot of pride.<\/p>\n
“I like her because she represents Latino culture, and today’s time Latinos need to be united and stick together,” another fan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A big weekend is ahead in Chicago, with major events planned at Wrigley Field, the United Center and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[73746,99,434],"class_list":["post-783027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-chicago-news","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783027","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=783027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}