This year, revenue generated by women’s elite sports is expected to top $1 billion for the first time in history, according to a study by Deloitte. Those projections point to why, two years ago, Dallas began talking with the local WNBA franchise, Dallas Wings, about moving the team from Arlington to its namesake city.
Three years ago, real estate investor Jim Neil and his family started looking into bringing a pro women’s soccer team to town, eventually turning toward the budding United Soccer League to do so. The city liked the idea so much, it offered the team the iconic Cotton Bowl Stadium for home matches beginning this year. And, because all good things come in threes, Dallas is welcoming a new pro women’s indoor volleyball team in the Pro Volleyball Federation, which will start play in 2026.
“Holistically, you’re seeing a movement,” says Monica Paul, the Dallas Sports Commission executive director. “These new teams coming to town are big, big wins for the city of Dallas.”
The biggest bet is on the Wings. A $19 million incentive package was granted to the franchise to offset the team’s relocation costs. The city estimates it will spend an additional $150 million to $200 million on renovations to Memorial Auditorium—a lifeless venue that currently hosts about a dozen events a year—to host the Wings as anchor tenants. However, with just 20 home games a year for the WNBA team, Dallas will need to ramp up the usage of the 10,000-seat stadium year-round. That’s exactly what it plans to do.
“Twelve events a year doesn’t even pay the current light bill for the auditorium,” Rosa Fleming, the city’s convention and event services director, says with a laugh. “We’re going to use that building as much as we can throughout 365 days.”
The city and the Wings will split food and beverage revenue, 65 percent of which will kick back to Dallas. Seventy percent of the parking revenue will go to the city, which negotiated that 40 percent of the Wings’ part-time gameday staff be Dallas residents. The city will also make $2 on each ticket sold. “All of those sellouts will make this a profitable venue again,” Fleming says.
At the start of its 2024 season, year-to-date, the Wings were up 173 percent on season ticket sales, 347 percent on flex-plan ticket sales, 683 percent on group ticket sales, and 1,221 percent on individual ticket sales. Total ticket revenue was up 222 percent. “We will set individual game revenue records this year, we’ll set total ticket revenue records this year, and we’ll set records for every product we sell this year,” says Greg Bibb, the team’s president and CEO.
At the Wings’ new home in Dallas, the team will have about 2,000 more seats than it currently has at its current stadium in Arlington. “At a conservative price of about $40 a ticket, spread out over 40,000 additional seats a year for home games, we’re talking about at least $1.5 million more in ticket revenue a year,” Bibb says.
For Dallas Trinity FC, the soccer team that was unveiled in May, the city is subsidizing the cost of using the Cotton Bowl to the tune of $296,000 a year for two seasons. Should the team be financially successful, a third-year option is built into the contract. “It’s a tiny bet from the city, but the speed at which they gave us their support was unfathomable,” says Neil, the team’s CEO. “I think Dallas is going to get a return on its investment many times over.”
Fleming tends to concur but says it will take time. “We’re probably looking at break-even after three years and reaching a profit after five,” she says.
Details surrounding the professional volleyball team are still in the works. But Paul at the DSC is optimistic. “We know, based on the many volleyball events we already host, that Dallas is a hotbed for the sport,” she says.
Dallas is not only betting on new teams, it’s also doubling down on events. One of the most successful sporting events for the region each year is the National Cheer Association’s All-Star National Championship, hosted at the convention center. Not exclusively a women’s sporting event but mainly made up of girls, the event attracted 66,000 attendees earlier this year and contributed $64.4 million in economic impact to the city. According to Fleming, it sells out nearly every hotel from downtown to the Galleria. “The impact it has on our arts and culture is under the radar,” she says, “for the kids who aren’t performing, the other parent typically takes them to the Perot or Klyde Warren Park or the Arts District.”
Always aiming for more, Paul is not letting off the gas in getting collegiate and professional women’s sporting events for Dallas. With the 2023 NCAA Women’s Final Four at American Airlines Center generating an economic impact of $40.3 million, the Dallas Sports Commission exec is bringing the 2031 edition back to the AAC. Last year, more people watched the NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship than Game 1 of the World Series.
Paul also wants to score a WNBA All-Star win for Dallas. “We’d be looking at 2027 or beyond for the WNBA All-Star Weekend,” she says. Indianapolis, which is hosting the event this year, is projected to see 125,000 fans stream into town and be the beneficiary of an impact of $320 million. “We want to be front and center, continuing to elevate women’s sports,” Paul says. Fleming doubles down. “It just makes sense to invest in women’s sports,” she says. “If you’ve watched the trends, you’d know women’s sports are only rising.”
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