One Dallas pro sports franchise is weighing a move to Plano. Another is analyzing potential arena sites to remain in Dallas, but owns prime property in Irving as a fallback.
Then there are the Dallas Wings: Eager and, since 2024, contractually committed to move from Arlington to Dallas, but now reeling from another gut-punch delay.
Wings CEO Greg Bibb told The Dallas Morning News the team’s $48.6 million training facility that was supposed to open this spring in Far West Oak Cliff is in construction limbo — unstarted, actually — and now projected to open by spring 2027.
The delay compounds last May’s setback, when the city of Dallas informed the Wings that Memorial Auditorium downtown won’t be refurbished in time to host WNBA games until 2027, a year later than planned.
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Both delays are ill-timed for a Wings franchise that wants to pounce during this most pivotal confluence in the WNBA’s 29-year history: rising women’s basketball popularity, a potential new collective bargaining agreement and greater ability to woo players — in the Wings’ case, to build around star Paige Bueckers.
Ninth-year Wings CEO Bibb seemingly has reasons to be frustrated, but during a sitdown with The News to explain the latest delay, he says his emotions don’t rise to that level.
“Obviously I’m disappointed that we’re not getting ready to move into two facilities that we thought we were going to be moving into when we signed the agreement,” he said. “But I do believe in the city and its leadership.
“And I do believe in the vision of what the city has for the next decade downtown.”
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, through a spokesperson, declined to comment. Mayor Eric Johnson has been vocal in his support for the Wings, but his spokesperson didn’t respond to emails.
Rosa Fleming, director of Dallas’ convention and event services, did not respond to calls or emails and council member Jesse Moreno, whose District 2 includes downtown didn’t respond to phone messages.
Logically, Bibb realizes the Wings are a smaller piece of a complex and still-evolving downtown puzzle.
It includes AT&T’s recently announced departure to Plano, starting in 2028. And the Stars’ potential move to Plano when their American Airlines Center lease expires in 2031.
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And the Mavericks’ arena options, which might include the site of City Hall, if Dallas leaders decide to demolish it. For pro basketball fans who haven’t noticed, City Hall is catty-corner, across South Akard Street, from Memorial Auditorium, built in 1957.
Mavericks CEO Rick Welts has told The News that wherever their arena is built, “This will hopefully be the greatest expression of what Maverick fans would expect.”
Furthermore, he said: “It will have everything about Texas and Dallas that we can bring to it, to give it a shape and form that will be a foundation for economic competition over the next 30 or 40 years.”
Despite the potential of that starkly contrasting optic — the inequity of a sparkling Taj Mahal-like male team’s arena dwarfing the refurbished 9,000-seat venue of the women’s team — Bibb says the Wings’ desire to be in Dallas has not waned.
“That said, I think it’s important to remember that the Dallas Wings two years ago signed a deal to move downtown because we want to partner with the city. And I think it’s important people do remember there is another team involved in the grand landscape of what’s going on in Dallas right now.
“I want to make sure the Wings aren’t forgotten in that shuffle. Because we think we provide great value to the city, to the residents of Dallas, and to the vision of what that convention center district is going to be once it’s all said and done.”
Missed deadline
Wings CEO and president Greg Bibb, center, along with city officials as the Dallas Wings and the City of Dallas had a groundbreaking at the team’s new practice facility at Joey Georgusis Park, in Dallas, Texas, Friday, September 26, 2025.
Anja Schlein / Special Contributor
Last Sept. 26, sunshine and smiles radiated at West Oak Cliff’s Joey Georgusis Park, where Dallas dignitaries and seemingly the entire Wings franchise gathered for the training facility’s ceremonial groundbreaking.
On display were renderings for the 70,700-square foot facility, including the two basketball courts; 3,800-square foot locker room; player lifestyle suite; 4,000 square feet of strength; and conditioning space and a full-service dining area.
Noting the facility’s multipurpose capabilities for youth programs and community special events, Tolbert lauded it as a hub of systemic change — an intersection of women’s sports, family health and community pride.
“I want to say as we go into the next phase, we want you to hold us accountable,” she said, looking toward Bibb. “And my commitment is that we will deliver this practice facility for you by the spring of 2026.”
But 110 days later, the only dirt turned over on the property came from ceremonial shovels, scooped out of a metal trough.
Bibb says within a month of the ceremony, Tolbert requested a meeting at City Hall, during which she acknowledged the city would not be able to meet a spring of 2026 construction deadline.
Tolbert suggested, and Bibb concurred, that the most expedient course would be for the Wings to take over the project’s development.
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That would give the Wings more control over construction deadlines, but also require an unspecified financial commitment from the franchise and make it responsible for cost overages.
Since October, the Wings and city have negotiated parameters of a deal that would change in the master agreement and thus need city council approval.
“The City is working alongside the Dallas Wings leadership to prepare a plan that is doable for everyone and allows us to meet our commitments to the Wings,” said council member Chad West, whose District 1 includes Far West Oak Cliff.
“The Wings are very important to Dallas,” West added. “And just like with all of our professional teams, we need to do whatever we can to keep them here.”
Bibb says negotiations have not lagged and the city has kept promises to engage the Wings in every facet, for both the practice facility and Memorial Auditorium updates.
Bibb agreed to speak to The News after The Beck Group, a Dallas-based architecture firm, said in a construction trade magazine it was working on the Memorial Auditorium and training facility projects, both slated for completion in 2027 — not 2026.
Some Wings fans saw the magazine blurb and noted on message boards the later practice facility date. Bibb in recent days has informed Wings employees, coaches and players that the date is indeed accurate, and why.
“It did get picked up on social media and we’ve started to get inquiries from fans about it; this [interview] is to answer those questions publicly,” Bibb said, adding that he informed city officials that he would be speaking to The News.
As in the case of Memorial Auditorium, the Wings would be tenants of the practice facility even if they take over its development. Bibb said he has not been given a specific reason the city wants the Wings to become the developer, but he has an educated guess.
“They have a lot on their plate right now with the convention center district construction,” he said. “Our piece is relatively small, when you think about a multibillion-dollar convention center and all the different phases to what they have going on downtown.”
World-class facilities … eventually
Dallas Memorial Auditorium photographed on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026 in Downtown Dallas.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
If an agreement is reached soon, a spring 2027 completion of the training facility is doable, Bibb said, but the same can’t be said for his level of certainty about Memorial Auditorium.
Under the agreement the Wings and city signed in April 2024, the team was supposed to move into a refurbished Memorial Auditorium starting with the 2026 season, under a 15-year, $19 million use agreement.
But Bibb said construction was delayed when the city submitted a bid to FIFA and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center was named host of the 2026 World Cup’s International Broadcast Center.
That’s why the city asked the Wings to scrap initial plans for the new training facility to be built adjacent to Memorial Auditorium.
“I understand their decision to pursue the International Broadcast Center for the world’s largest sporting event,” Bibb said. “That’s ultimately the reason the practice facility moved.”
Buildout for the IBC is scheduled to begin this month. An estimated 2,000 broadcast teams and technicians from around the world will occupy convention center Halls A, B and C through July.
With City Hall’s future and Mavericks arena site still undecided, ambiguity about the new convention center’s exact location and construction timeline also casts uncertainty about whether Memorial Auditorium will be ready by the May start of the 2027 season.
”I’m going to continue to take the city at its word that Memorial Auditorium will be ready,” Bibb said. “And I’m going to give my word that the practice facility will be ready.”
Last December, designs for Memorial Auditorium were shared in a memo from assistant city manager Robin Bentley to the City Council. News reports about the designs admittedly caught Bibb by surprise, but, otherwise, city officials have been collaborative in almost every facet.
Has any work actually been done inside Memorial Auditorium? Bibb said he’s unsure, since most of his focus has been on the training facility negotiations.
“I will say that the design of the Auditorium, much like the design of the practice facility, when complete will give us world-class facilities,” he said.
“And I would say our team-committed space in the arena is best of class in the WNBA. It will be wonderful, when built.”
Dallas in name, not reality
When the Wings franchise moved from Tulsa to North Texas, beginning with the 2016 season, team leadership chose UT-Arlington’s College Park Center because of its idyllic WNBA crowd capacity (6,251) and central location.
The rise in women’s basketball popularity, beginning with the 2020 COVID-19 playoffs in the Bradenton, Fla., “Wubble,” caused Bibb to reassess the North Texas marketplace.
The CEO also realized the WNBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement would expire in 2026, likely resulting in larger salaries and a need for a larger playing venue and state-of-the-art training facilities to attract players.
In late 2022, Bibb began to reach out to North Texas cities about options, including remaining in Arlington with enhanced facilities. In November, Bibb received a surprise, unsolicited invitation from Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to meet with him.
Before Bibb could step into City Hall, he was whisked by golf cart across South Akard Street to Memorial Auditorium, where about 40 people waited inside, including Johnson and most of the city council.
Johnson texted to reiterate how much Dallas wanted the Wings to, as he put it, “Come home,” before Bibb left the City Hall parking lot.
Bibb was blown away. More than three years later, despite the delays, he’s no less convinced the Wings made the right decision to sign that 2024 agreement. He calls it “an unprecedented” scale of partnership between a city and women’s pro sports franchise.
The arrival of Indiana rookie phenomenon Caitlin Clark in 2024, followed a year later by Bueckers, have helped make Bibb’s 2022 vision all the more prescient.
Despite a league-worst 10-34 record last season, the Wings averaged 7,272 fans in 22 home games, aided by moving two games against Indiana to American Airlines Center, drawing crowds of 20,409 and 17,857.
Playing to mostly sellout crowds at UT Arlington last season made for great game atmospheres, Bibb said, but also magnified the realization that the Wings have outgrown their home.
“College Park Center is great, but to be fair, College Park Center was never designed with the intent of housing a professional sports team,” he said. “It was designed to house multiple Division I college teams.
“And those are a different animal, especially in today’s day and age.”
How much are the training center and Memorial Auditorium delays hurting the Wings financially?
Bibb noted the auditorium is projected to have 8,400 seats. Multiply those 2,000 extra seats by 22 home games. Then, he said, there’s commercial sponsorship, parking and food and beverage.
“There’s a significant revenue upside for us there (Dallas) versus here (College Park),” Bibb said.
The training center delay’s revenue effect is harder to quantify. The facility will include the ability to sell commercial signage and expand youth camps and clinics.
But no one can put a price on foiled plans to usher prospective free agents through the facility this spring, or make a tangible impression on trade targets and Wings players whose contracts have expired.
“The big thing there, though, is we can’t impact the community until we get into the community to impact it,” Bibb said.
The Wings have extended their contracts to play and train in College Park Center for one more season, but after that?
“We have not officially resolved anything for ‘27, although I’m telling you, we will have a practice facility ready in ‘27,” Bibb said.
Dallas has been part of the Wings’ team name, and on their jerseys, for nine years. Last April’s Wings draft picks, including Bueckers, were publicly introduced at City Hall.
Free agent signees and new coach Jose Fernandez were feted in Reunion Tower. There’s a good chance the player the Wings draft No. 1 overall this April will be celebrated somewhere in Dallas.
But until further notice, the Wings mostly are Dallas in name, not reality.
Find more Wings coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.