fun events<\/a> around the city leading up to the game at United Center.<\/p>\nFrom leadership summits, to youth basketball clinics, to networking events, there has been so much momentum and growing support for women’s sports.<\/p>\n
The league’s biggest stars got to practice on the court at the new Obama Presidential Center Friday.<\/p>\n
They got a surprise visit from the former president himself, and he shared words of encouragement to the players.<\/p>\n
“All of you are extraordinary and I could not be bigger fans. The way the game has been going lately, the way it’s been picking up, and people paying attention to your excellence, I think, has been something for basketball fans generally, a sight to see,” former President Barack Obama said.<\/p>\n
The weekend has also been inspirational for young girls who dream of being part of the WNBA one day.<\/p>\n
The All-Star Game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Watch on ABC7 Chicago.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — The stage is set for the 2026 WNBA All-Star Game Saturday night in Chicago. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":958250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[385446,12086,960,5386,1818,7629,16495,4810,20644,50442,51169],"class_list":["post-958249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-385446","tag-12086","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-players","tag-schedule","tag-stars","tag-today","tag-tonight","tag-wnba-all-star-weekend"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116980483400685769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}