WNBA All-Star weekend is headed to California.
The Golden State Valkyries will host the league’s midseason showcase in San Francisco in 2027. The league’s third California team (after the Los Angeles Sparks and the now-defunct Sacramento Monarchs) is the first to bring the All-Star Game to the Golden State.
The All-Star events will be held at the Chase Center, where the Valkyries have sold out every game during their two-year existence. The league set an All-Star attendance record at the United Center last month with 19,783 fans; the capacity at Chase Center isn’t as large — its sellout crowd seats 18,064 — but the environment at Ballhalla has been widely praised since Golden State joined the league in 2025.
Kayla Thornton was the first All-Star for the Valkyries in their inaugural season, and Gabby Williams was the franchise’s first All-Star starter in 2026.
The bidding process for the WNBA All-Star Game is quite different from the NBA.
Last year, the Chicago Sky were the only franchise to express interest in hosting the midseason exhibition game despite the league holding a formal bidding process, according to Front Office Sports. In 2025, the league recruited Indianapolis to host the All-Star Game. Chicago hosted the game twice in five years, and the Las Vegas Aces hosted three out of four All-Star Games before 2024.
Though historically the league has had to pursue a host, the Phoenix Mercury outbid three other interested groups in 2024.
Some hesitancy comes from the exorbitant cost of hosting. For example, the Mercury hosted the game in 2014 and, 10 years later, spent 200 times more to “turn the weekend on its head,” team president Vince Kozar said last year.
It’s unclear if the Valkyries outbid any other franchise for the 2027 game.
