WNBA moves Finals Games 3 and 4 to State Farm Arena, giving Atlanta Dream thousands more seats

The WNBA is moving Games 3 and 4 of the Finals to State Farm Arena in Atlanta, giving the Dream thousands of additional seats to sell. To make that happen, the league is moving one game to a different day and changing the start time of the other.

The league announced Tuesday that Game 3 against the Golden State Valkyries will be played Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 8 p.m. ET, a day earlier than originally scheduled.

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Game 4 will stay on Saturday, Oct. 24, but tipoff moves from 3:30 p.m. to 1 p.m. ET. The NBA’s Atlanta Hawks also agreed to push their home opener against the Houston Rockets back 30 minutes, from 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., to accommodate the Dream.

State Farm Arena already has a Sombr concert scheduled for Oct. 22, which created the conflict with Game 3. The new arrangement allows Atlanta to use a building that seats roughly 17,000 instead of its usual home, the approximately 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena.

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the move “dramatically expands the seating capacity” and gives thousands more fans across the Southeast a chance to attend. It’ll be the first Finals game played in the Atlanta market since 2013.

Dream majority owner Larry Gottesdiener added: “This is what the players and the fans deserve.”

The best-of-seven series begins Saturday, Oct. 17, in San Francisco, with Golden State hosting the first two games before the Finals shift to Atlanta.

Game 6, if necessary, is scheduled for Oct. 29 in Atlanta. Tuesday’s announcement did not address where that game would be played.

As OutKick noted last week, curtains covered upper-level seating during Atlanta’s semifinal opener against the New York Liberty. The Dream reported 9,745 fans for that Oct. 4 game in an arena that normally accommodates roughly 17,000.

“We just decided that with the short turnaround, we would only open the lower bowl and really concentrate on selling those tickets,” a Dream spokesperson said. The team said it eventually opened part of the upper level after selling the approximately 8,800 lower-bowl seats.

Atlanta sold out five of its six regular-season games at State Farm Arena, but there’s some context behind those crowds. Two featured Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever, and there’s no additional context needed behind having the league’s biggest star in town.

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The two sellouts against Las Vegas were Atlanta’s home opener and its Barbie-themed game. The Chicago matchup was HBCU and Divine Nine Night. The lone game that didn’t sell out, against the Toronto Tempo, drew 9,685 fans.

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So, is a WNBA Finals game as big a draw as those events? We’re about to find out.

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Tickets don’t go on sale to the general public until Oct. 16, just five days before Game 3. Remember, the Dream cited a “short turnaround” when explaining why they initially kept the upper bowl closed earlier in the playoffs. Now, they’ve put themselves in a similar spot, and this time, they’re promising thousands more fans a chance to attend.

A bigger arena sounds great in a press release. Let’s see how much of it the Dream actually need.