The Atlanta Dream have reached the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2013, but their biggest home games of the season are set to be played in one of the league’s smallest venues.
Barring a late change, Atlanta will host Games 3, 4 and, if necessary, Game 6 of the Finals at Gateway Center Arena in College Park, which holds roughly 3,500 fans for basketball. The Dream had hoped to move those games to State Farm Arena, the much larger downtown home of the Atlanta Hawks, but scheduling conflicts made that impossible.
State Farm Arena is already booked on all three potential Finals dates. A concert is scheduled for October 22, while the Hawks have regular-season home games on October 24 and October 29, including their home opener.
Atlanta also explored other options in the area, including Gas South Arena, which can hold up to about 13,000 fans, and Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion, which seats 8,600. Those efforts also failed to produce an available alternative.
Atlanta played three postseason home games at State Farm Arena before reaching the Finals and averaged nearly 9,700 fans there. The franchise has also sold out every game at Gateway Center Arena over the past three seasons and has sold out State Farm Arena multiple times, including games with crowds exceeding 17,000.
The timing is also awkward because the Dream announced only days ago that State Farm Arena will become their full-time home beginning in 2027. Under the new multi-year agreement, Atlanta will play all 25 regular-season home games there next year as the WNBA expands to a 50-game schedule.
Atlanta’s Finals opponent, the Golden State Valkyries, will host its home games at Chase Center in San Francisco, where the expansion franchise has played in front of sellout crowds throughout the season.
That creates an unusual contrast for the championship series: one team playing in a major NBA arena, the other potentially limited to just 3,500 seats despite significantly greater demand.
The Dream have outgrown Gateway Center Arena. Their move to State Farm Arena next season already acknowledges that reality. They just reached the WNBA Finals one year too early for the bigger building to be fully theirs.
