WNBA Union Blasts Chicago Sky For Yet Another Facility Delay

CHICAGO — The Chicago Sky’s highly anticipated practice facility has been delayed again, and it will not be ready during the 2026 season.

Sky GM Jeff Pagliocca told reporters Friday at Wintrust Arena that the franchise has decided not to move into their Bedford Park, Illinois, practice facility during the 2026 season. He said the facility will only be partially completed by the end of the season, and decided that they would not want the team to start practicing while construction was ongoing.

He also said that majority of the team’s practices for the rest of the season will be held at Wintrust, where the Sky play home games.

“We have made a decision that we will remain at Wintrust to practice for the rest of the season,” Pagliocca told reporters, including Front Office Sports. “We met with the team. There’s value in practicing where you play. And without the facility being at a 100% completion, I feel like it’s best to make sure when we go in, we go in giving them the experience that we wanted them to have from Day 1.” 

The WNBA players’ union ripped the Sky in a statement Friday afternoon.

“Situations like this and franchises that operate like the Chicago Sky are why the Union was laser focused on securing provisions in the CBA that required minimum standards for team facilities and staffing,” WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said in a statement. 

“The players need and deserve consistency in the facilities that they use every day – their health and safety depend on it. After 20 years in this league, it is long overdue for Chicago’s ownership to recognize how to properly resource and support professional (women) athletes,” she added, referring to the Sky’s long history of operational issues and player complaints.

Pagliocca said he expects the facility to be fully complete in November in time for the 2027 season. It had originally been slated for completion by December 2025.

Part of the delay, according to Pagliocca, is due to the expanded size of the facility. It was originally supposed to be about 40,000 square feet, but has since doubled in size. The facility was originally expected to cost the team $38 million to build, but construction costs have reportedly ballooned to $60 million as of February. 

Pagliocca said he is not aware of whether the budget had changed. The team is splitting the cost with the city of Bedford Park, which is providing $31.8 million.

Facility Delays, Displaced Practices

When the facility was first announced, it was scheduled to open by the end of 2025, ahead of the 2026 season. The opening date has been pushed back several times, with the most recent update prior to Friday coming at Sky’s media day in late April when Pagliocca said it would open in the “late spring, early summer.” 

Chicago is hosting the WNBA All-Star Game next week, with the 3-Point Contest and Shooting Stars challenge scheduled for next Friday at Wintrust Arena. The All-Star Game next Saturday will be held at the United Center, home of the NBA’s Bulls and NHL’s Blackhawks. 

When the league first announced that Chicago was hosting the All-Star Game, the Sky’s new practice facility was expected to host “community impact events.” However, many of All-Star Weekend’s ancillary events have been scheduled at the new Obama Presidential Center.

The Sky started the season practicing at the Flames Athletic Center, the facility of University of Illinois in Chicago’s men’s and women’s basketball teams. The facility is located about two miles from Wintrust Arena, where the team plays their home games. 

Documents obtained by FOS revealed that the Sky spent $160,000, a rate of $5,000 per day for 32 days, to practice at the facility from April 19–May 30.

Since leaving UIC, the Sky have held most of their practices at the Wintrust Arena. DePaul’s basketball team is also a primary tenant of the arena, which is owned by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority. The Sky have also held a couple of practices in June at Loyola University Chicago, about 10 miles from Wintrust Arena. 

Pagliocca did not rule out UIC or Loyola as possible practice venue options: “We will probably address those when we need to. As of now, a majority of our time will be at Wintrust.”

On July 9, Front Office Sports observed the outside of the Bedford Park facility site, which is connected to the Wintrust Sports Complex; it showed a clearly unfinished site seemingly months away from completion. There was limited view of the first floor from the outside, but the building’s second floor did not appear to have walls placed. 

The practice facility was a key selling point during 2026 free agency. Skylar Diggins, the seven-time All-Star who signed a two-year deal with the Sky in April, told the Chicago Sun-Times last week that she feels the franchise does not have  “everything that we need to be successful.

“I was thinking we were going to be in a practice facility, and other things that were told to me. And that’s not been the case. There’s been things outside of people’s control that I understand, too, a lot of moving parts. Lots of places I’ve been were in that process as well, so I get it. But it’s hard to perform at a certain level without those [resources].”

Asked Friday about the reaction of the players to the delay, Pagliocca said: “We’ve been giving them frequent updates. I spent a lot of time coming and going and in meetings. We’ve been very transparent with the players.” 

Under the new WNBA CBA, teams will be subject to penalties for failing to adhere to certain practice facility standards starting the 2028 season.