The explosive growth of women’s sports is a well-documented phenomenon over the past four years.
But when Chicago hosts the WNBA All-Star Weekend 2026 in July, Kara Bachman — executive director of the Chicago Sports Commission — wants the city’s investors and businesses to do more than just cheer from the sidelines.
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“Do a little more,” Bachman said Friday during a launch event at Fulton Market. “Put your money where your mouth is.” »
The league’s All-Star festivities will return to Chicago for the second time July 23-25, with the game scheduled for Saturday, July 25 at the United Center. Those dates are more than six months away — but planning has already begun for a cornerstone of the WNBA schedule.
The final step in this process took place Friday at a kickoff event led by Governor JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson and co-owner Dwyane Wade as Sky and the city reached out to local investors and business leaders to participate in the weekend.
According to a report from Front Office Sports, Chicago was the only city applying to host All-Star Weekend 2026. The reluctance of other teams? Hosting duties are shared between the host team and the league, making the weekend expensive as the standards for logistics, such as hotels, parties and activations, increase dramatically with the sport as a whole.
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Nadia Rawlinson, co-owner and president of operations of Sky, led the campaign for Chicago to host the event. She said Sky accepted the responsibility as an opportunity to highlight Chicago as a whole. While some features — a welcome event, sponsor activations featuring star players, an invitation-only party hosted in conjunction with the players union — are familiar from previous iterations, Friday’s launch outlined a series of plans and initiatives to expand the event’s footprint.
This includes a series of VIP roundtable dinners in the months leading up to the event and an innovation summit to showcase and support the progress of women’s sport. During All-Star weekend, Rawlinson said Sky would host a radio show to highlight top sports and business shows. The Sky also plans to partner with the city on a series of community initiatives throughout the weekend, including a project to add the WNBA 3-point line to basketball courts in every public park in Chicago.
Throughout the weekend, Rawlinson stressed that Sky and the WNBA would look to showcase the diversity of the league’s fans.
“The WNBA is (a place) where everyone can find their person,” Rawlinson said. “They can find connection. It’s a place where typically people who don’t have a natural community can find community. This is our chance to highlight that.”
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Chicago hosted the 2022 WNBA All-Star Game at Wintrust Arena – home of the Sky. For the first time in franchise history, the team last season played two regular season games at the United Center. The home of the NBA’s Bulls and NHL’s Blackhawks has almost double the capacity of Wintrust’s 10,380 seats.
