After playing three home playoff games at State Farm Arena during their run to the WNBA Finals, the Atlanta Dream will have to host games for the league’s championship series at the smaller Gateway Center Arena.
The Dream played six of their 22 home games during the regular season at the larger State Farm Arena, home to the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. With a capacity of 16,888 for basketball games, the larger facility could accommodate what were certain to be bigger crowds for two WNBA Finals games.
Additionally, State Farm Arena is located in downtown Atlanta, presumably providing easier access from hotels, highways and mass transit, in addition to more parking and ability to walk to the stadium from the city center.
Instead, the Dream will have to play at the smaller Gateway Center Arena, which seats 3,500 for basketball games and is located just outside Atlanta in College Park, Georgia.
By comparison, the Golden State Valkyries will host Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 at Chase Center in San Francisco, also the home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, which seats 18,064 for basketball.
The Dream have attempted to move its WNBA Finals games to a larger arena in the area, but have thus far been unsuccessful in those discussions, according to USA Today’s Meghan L. Hall.
Among the other possible venues in the Atlanta metropolitan area are McCavish Pavilion on the campus of Georgia Tech, which can seat 8,600 for basketball games. The Convocation Center at Georgia State University also has a capacity of 7,500 for basketball. Gas South Arena in Duluth, Georgia — located nearly 30 miles from downtown Atlanta — can accommodate 12,750 and was also considered.
State Farm Arena is unavailable for Games 3, 4 and 6 of the WNBA Finals — scheduled for Oct. 22, Oct. 24 and Oct. 29, respectively — with a concert by Sombr and two Hawks regular-season games, including the team’s home opener, already booked at the venue.
"We didn't have playoff games [at State Farm Arena] last year... but we had a couple of games there, and they felt like playoff games,” Dream guard Rhyne Howard told USA Today. “So I think for us to have had those during the season and have the outcome that we had, I think it helps us get ready for this environment.”
Last week, the Dream announced that it will play all of its 2027 home games at State Farm Arena. Each team will have 25 home games as part of an expanded 50-game WNBA regular-season schedule. However, that obviously does nothing to solve the problem of what to do during the WNBA Finals.