The WNBA All-Star Game is headed to Indianapolis.
The league announced Thursday that Indianapolis will play host to All-Star weekend next summer, as first reported by ESPN’s Alexa Philippou. It will mark the first time that the city has hosted the All-Star Game, and it comes after Indianapolis hosted the NBA’s All-Star weekend earlier this year.
The move to land on Indianapolis comes amid a surge in interest in the Indiana Fever, who selected former Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft earlier this year.
Clark, who is college basketball’s all-time leading scorer and led the Hawkeyes to back-to-back national title games, has averaged 17.1 points, 8.2 assists and 5.8 rebounds per game so far this season with the Fever. She narrowly missed out on making Team USA for the Olympics this summer, but she scored four points and had 10 assists in Team WNBA’s win over Team USA in the All-Star Game earlier this summer before the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Thanks to Clark and other young stars Aliyah Boston and NaLyssa Smith, the Fever have set several WNBA viewership records and have 38 of their 40 regular season games on national television. They lead the league in attendance in both home and away games, too, and have seen a 265% increase in attendance from last season, per ESPN.
The Fever hold an 11-15 record, which has them seventh in the league standings and third in the Eastern Conference. They will resume their season on Friday against the Phoenix Mercury.
The last WNBA All-Star Game was held in Phoenix earlier this summer. Las Vegas has hosted it three times in the past six years, and Chicago hosted it in 2022. Indianapolis will also host the men’s Final Four in 2026 and the women’s Final Four in 2028.