00:00Chicago will be hosting WNBA All-Star in 2026.
00:04There were a lot of reports coming out that Chicago was the only city and the only team to put a bid in for the 2026 WNBA All-Star game.
00:14I don't think anybody has the answer to it, but the question that I have is why?
00:20Why is Chicago the only city to put a bid in for WNBA All-Star?
00:25It has to be something about money and just the effort and the investment that it takes to put on a weekend because it's not, you know, it's also a weekend.
00:33It's a weekend full of events. You're advertising beforehand. You're paying for people to stay in hotels.
00:39You're paying for hotel blocks when you, you know, buy an All-Star ticket.
00:42You can use this code to book at this partnership. It's a lot for teams and cities.
00:47And even though teams split operational costs with the league, it's a huge, huge, huge production to put on an All-Star game.
00:56I think Chicago is really smart to do it, especially when you have Angel Reese.
00:59That makes a lot of sense. You can attract a lot of kind of movers and shakers to Chicago for that weekend.
01:04So it does. It makes a lot of sense for Chicago.
01:06But it is a little disappointing just to hear that there is not that kind of infighting between teams in the league saying, no, I want to do this.
01:13No, we want to turn. We want to have all the fans. We know that they do really well on TV.
01:17We know that it's a really great atmosphere. So it's just a bummer.
01:21And it has to do with operational costs, especially when there's so much uncertainty in the league this year.
01:25I wouldn't be surprised if teams are kind of sitting back and saying, you know, maybe this isn't the place where we want to invest right now.
01:32If we're going to be committing so much more to player salaries and all of these other things that are being negotiated.
01:37I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's something that franchise owners are thinking about as well.
01:43Now, I do understand that they split operational costs, but at what point does the WNBA look at it and say we're willing to maybe take a larger financial hit just to continue to capitalize on this growth?
01:53There's so much momentum and things are sprouting off that you want to feel like the league wants to be a part of it.
02:00And I feel like more and more these days, it feels like the league is kind of sitting back on its heels and doing what franchise owners and business people and leagues do, which is protect their bottom line.
02:11Which, again, makes a lot of sense from their perspective.
02:14From the fan perspective, though, it's a little bit of a bummer.
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