The deal to bring the Wings to Downtown Dallas was initially announced last year. And now the team could find itself playing at the American Airlines Center in 2026.
DALLAS — As the Dallas City Council prepares to consider on Wednesday a proposed new practice facility for the the Dallas Wings, a new city filing is shedding more light on when the WNBA team will finally be able to play in its future home at Memorial Auditorium within the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
With convention center construction delaying the the team’s plans to move its home court and practice facility to Downtown Dallas in 2026, council members on Wednesday will officially consider a new site — one in Joey Georgusis Park at 1200 N. Cockrell Hill Road in Far West Oak Cliff — as the location of a proposed and reimagined practice space for the Wings.
Building a practice facility for the team was part of the initial deal announced last spring to bring the Wings to Dallas in 2026, and move their home games from UT-Arlington’s College Park Center to Memorial Auditorium. That deal with the team includes $19 million in incentives paid to the Wings over three calendar years and a stipulation that the city would provide a practice facility for the Wings by the spring of 2026.
According to a new city filing, however, the Wings and the city have now mutually agreed to move the timeframe for the Wings to officially start playing their games at Memorial Auditorium from 2026 to spring 2027.
According to the parties’ initial agreement, the American Airlines Center was listed as an alternate, backup venue for the team in the event of a delay in the move to Memorial Auditorium.
The new paperwork regarding the delay, which was filed on June 6, comes after previous city filings had indicated that the renovation and reconstruction of Memorial Auditorium was expected to take until 2027.
“The agreement also allowed for a mutually agreed-upon option to extend the move-in date to the Arena for a year. The City of Dallas and the Dallas Wings have mutually agreed, through Supplemental Agreement No. 1, to exercise that clause for the Arena, with the Dallas Wings taking occupancy of the Arena in Spring 2027,” the filing read.
The Memorial Auditorium is being renovated as part of a larger effort to re-envision the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, which is currently undergoing a $3.3 to 3.5 billion renovation.
As for the practice facility set to be considered tomorrow, it was initially planned to be near the Dallas Memorial Auditorium as well, but a new location was needed in part because plans to build at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center conflicted with plans for the 2026 FIFA World Cup International Broadcast Center. City staff have estimated the cost to build the practice facility at up to $55 million, to be paid for using convention center construction money. WFAA first reported that city staff had identified the park as the location for the new facility last week.
The city council previously approved the use of $5 million to begin design work on the practice facility in May. While the Dallas City Council hasn’t officially approved the location for the practice facility, the Dallas Park and Recreation Board greenlit the location last week.
Some city council members had asked the city to pause plans to build the practice facility, citing questions about the practice facility’s location, funding and timeline.