Golden State to host 2027 WNBA All-Star Game

WNBA All-Star Weekend is headed to California.

The Golden State Valkyries will host the league’s midseason exhibition 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 Chase Center’s capacity isn’t that large — its sellout crowd is 18,064 — but the Ballhalla’s environment 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 a midseason exhibition game despite the league having a formal bidding process, according to Front Office Sports. In 2025, the league recruited Indianapolis to host the All-Star Game. Chicago has hosted the game twice in five years, and the Las Vegas Aces have hosted three of the four All-Star games before 2024.

Although the league has historically had to seek a host, the Phoenix Mercury outbid three other interested groups in 2024.

Some hesitation comes from the exorbitant cost of hosting. For example, the Mercury hosted a game in 2014 and 10 years later spent 200 times that to “turn the weekend around,” team president Vince Kozar said last year.

It’s unclear if the Valkyries outrank any other franchise for the game in 2027.