The Atlanta Dream play in the WNBA's smallest arena — Gateway Center in College Park, which holds 3,500 fans. For two games in the 2024 season, that was not going to be enough. The Dream announced in May 2024 that their June 21 and August 26 matchups against the Indiana Fever — featuring No. 1 overall draft pick Caitlin Clark — would be played at State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta, a venue that holds more than 17,000.
Team President Morgan Shaw Parker explained the move with the kind of clarity that comes from watching every ticket disappear: "Their passion and excitement led us to the most sellouts in the league over the last two years and has created a demand for tickets that far outpaces the supply inside our current arena."
The Numbers
The Dream had already sold their entire season ticket allotment in April — the second WNBA team to do so. Ten of 20 Gateway Center home games were listed as sellouts before the season started. The franchise attendance record stood at 11,609, set during their 2008 inaugural game against Detroit at Philips Arena (now State Farm Arena). The Dream hoped to exceed that mark for both Fever matchups.
The Caitlin Clark effect was not unique to Atlanta. Clark, the record-setting Iowa scorer selected first overall by Indiana, was driving ticket demand at every WNBA arena she visited. But the Dream's situation was more dramatic than most — their home court literally could not hold the audience that wanted to watch.
Downtown Homecoming
The move to State Farm Arena was also a return. The Dream played at the downtown venue from 2008 to 2016 and again in 2019–2020 before relocating to College Park. Bringing games back to the same building where the franchise set its attendance record — and where Atlanta United and the Hawks had proven that downtown venues could draw massive crowds — raised a question the franchise had been quietly considering: whether the Dream's long-term home should be downtown.
For the two Fever games at least, the Dream would play where the energy of downtown Atlanta — the restaurants, the MARTA access, the walkability from hotels — could amplify a basketball game into an event.
Original reporting by GPB News, Georgia Public Broadcasting, May 16, 2024.