The WNBA Finals start Saturday, and one of the two teams in them does not know where it is playing its home games.
Atlanta hosts Games 3 and 4 against the Golden State Valkyries on Oct. 22 and Oct. 24. As of Monday, five days out from Game 1, the Dream had not confirmed a venue for either one.
The Conflicts Are Almost Comically Specific
State Farm Arena, which seats more than 17,000, is unavailable for Game 3 because of a Sombr concert that night.
It is unavailable for Game 4 because the Hawks’ home opener is that evening and there is not enough time to convert the building ahead of a 3:30 p.m. tip.
And if the series goes to a Game 6 on Oct. 29, State Farm Arena is booked again, for another Hawks home game.
Three potential home dates in the WNBA Finals, three scheduling conflicts.
The Fallback Is a 3,500-Seat Building
Atlanta played most of the regular season at Gateway Center Arena, which holds roughly 3,500 people. The Dream moved six regular-season games and all three of their previous home playoff games to State Farm Arena, and earlier this month signed a multi-year deal to play all of next season there.
So the infrastructure is arriving. It is arriving one year late.
Georgia Tech and Gas South Arena have both been floated as alternatives. Gas South hosted last year’s ACC Tournament and a Dream Finals game back in 2013.
Dream president and chief operating officer Morgan Shaw Parker said the team was “finalizing details on their home venue and where we will be playing.”
There Is Precedent, and It Is Not Flattering
The Washington Mystics hosted three games of the 2019 Finals in a building that seated just over 4,000. So this has happened before and the league survived it.
That was seven years ago, before the current expansion, before the television money, before a season in which both conference finals went to sweeps and produced two first-time finalists. A league that is growing this fast should not be scrambling for a Finals venue in October.
Golden State Had Its Own Version of This
The Valkyries had a conflict for Game 2 on Oct. 19 at Chase Center. A Doja Cat concert was moved to Oct. 25 to clear it.
That is how it is supposed to work. Somebody makes a call, the concert moves, the Finals game happens in the big building.
Atlanta has not been able to get that outcome three separate times, and it is going to end up playing the biggest home games in franchise history in front of a fraction of the people who want to be there. Game 1 is Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.