When the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces opened a training facility in the spring of 2023, it marked a moment of change for the league. The 64,000-square-foot building is outfitted with practice courts, weight rooms, physical therapy spaces, and medical facilities. It’s the kind of place that’s considered a given in men’s professional sports but has long been lacking for women.
Now, after a year in operation, the Aces’ training facility has ignited a mini wave of other WNBA-specific training facilities for teams including the Seattle Storm and the Phoenix Mercury. And the Aces $40 million training center demonstrates that these spaces can be about much more than making a better basketball team.
Accommodating the female professional athlete
Throughout the league’s history, WNBA teams have had to rely on the facilities of others to do their training. Many share spaces with men’s NBA teams, or use small areas affiliated with universities. Before their new facility was built, the Aces borrowed space from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “Just thinking about giving these women something they can call home was a very big opportunity for us,” says Susan Han, project architect for Gensler, which designed the facility.
Han says designing this as the first training center purpose-built for a WNBA team required thinking differently about what a professional sports team needed. The building has all the basketball-focused features a team could want, from its two full-size practice courts to hydrotherapy pools to a screening room for game film. But it also has spaces geared specifically for the needs of women, including some with children. (The WNBA estimates that about a dozen of its 139 players have children.) A lactation room was included, as was a nursery with a two-room nap area for young children. “Putting the family component into the player journey was one of the first things we developed with this client,” Han says.
