The explosive growth of women’s sports has been a well-documented phenomenon over the last four years.
But when Chicago hosts the 2026 WNBA All-Star Weekend in July, Kara Bachman — the executive director of the Chicago Sports Commission — wants the city’s investors and businesses to do more than just cheer from the sidelines.
“Do a little more,” Bachman said Friday during a launch event in Fulton Market. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
The league’s All-Star festivities will return to Chicago for the second time from July 23-25, with the game scheduled for Saturday, July 25 at the United Center. Those dates are more than six months away — but planning already has begun for a cornerstone of the WNBA calendar.
The latest step of that process took place Friday in a launch event headlined by Gov. JB Pritzker, mayor Brandon Johnson and part-owner Dwyane Wade as the Sky and the city made their pitch to local investors and business leaders to take part in the weekend.
According to a report by Front Office Sports, Chicago was the only city to bid for hosting the 2026 All-Star weekend. The reticence from other teams? Hosting duties are split between the host team and the league, making the weekend an expensive affair as the standard for logistics such as hotels, parties and activations rise meteorically with the sport as a whole.
Sky co-owner and operating chair Nadia Rawlinson spearheaded the pitch for Chicago to land the event. She said the Sky are embracing the responsibility as an opportunity to highlight Chicago as a whole. While some features — a welcoming event, sponsor activations featuring star players, an invite-only party organized in collaboration with the players union — will be familiar from past iterations, Friday’s launch outlined a series of plans and initiatives to expand the event’s footprint.
This includes a series of VIP roundtable dinners in the months leading up to the event and an innovation summit to highlight and support advancements in women’s sports. During All-Star weekend, Rawlinson said the Sky will host a radio row to highlight prominent sports and business shows. The Sky also plan to partner with the city for a series of community initiatives around the weekend, including a project to add the WNBA 3-point line to basketball courts at every public park in Chicago.
Throughout the weekend, Rawlinson emphasized that the Sky and the WNBA will seek to highlight the diversity of the league’s fanbase.
“The WNBA is (a place) where everyone can find their person,” Rawlinson said. “They can find connection. This is a place where typically people who don’t have a natural community can find community. This is our chance to highlight that.”
There had not yet been a night when Duke had to lean on Cameron Boozer, to ask him to be the star he is supposed to be. Most games, he’s played fewer than 30 minutes, still scoring more than 20 points in three of those, but generally idling as the Blue Devils cruise.
Then came Thursday against Arkansas, when no one else seemed to be able to do much on offense. Isaiah Evans and Dame Sarr had embarrassing airballs. Patrick Ngongba Jr. hit the side of the backboard, although he eventually tapped in his own miss. And if that was bad, Duke’s defense was somehow worse, letting the Razorbacks back into a game Duke should have put away early in the second half.
Boozer put down his shoulder, bullied his way toward the basket and dragged Duke to victory. The Razorbacks never had an answer for him. He was too big, too strong, too determined. It was just a question of Boozer taking control, which he did in the tensest moments of any second half the Blue Devils have yet played.
Without him, without a performance like this, Duke is no longer undefeated. Without all that, the Blue Devils don’t beat Arkansas 80-71 in this post-turkey tilt with the Hogs to move to 8-0 after their third true test of the season. They don’t pass this one without Boozer.
“We realized that they weren’t helping from the other big and they don’t really have an answer for me,” Boozer said. “So, I mean, coach is on me, ‘Get downhill, get to the rim. They can’t stop you.’ I did a lot of that second half for sure.”
Duke’s Cameron Boozer (12) celebrates with Caleb Foster against the Arkansas Razorbacks during the first half of the CBS Thanksgiving Classic at the United Center on November 27, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. Michael Reaves Getty Images
At one point, he grabbed a defensive rebound and went the length of the court for a dunk, a one-man unstoppable offense the Blue Devils couldn’t do without. He hit two 3-pointers, but it wasn’t his outside game that got Duke through, it was what he did in the lane, backing down opponents, leaning into them, pushing and shoving his way into spots where he could get the ball into the basket. Once, even, by accident. In the first half, he accounted for a personal 10-0 run, scoring three baskets and setting up the fourth.
“As soon as he figured out, ‘I can put my shoulder in this guy’s chest and move him,’ that’s all he did,” Arkansas coach John Calipari said. “You can try 12 different things, or do what you do well and just do it over and over and over.”
On this night, the numbers truly reflected his impact on the game: 35 points, nine rebounds and three assists, while drawing seven fouls in 36 minutes — the most he’s played in a Duke uniform, because the Blue Devils hadn’t needed him like this before. And in this moment of need, he delivered.
“What he’s done, it’s been incredible,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “I think him and I both know there’s been more there, as crazy as that sounds, and I still think there’s a lot more there. For me, the biggest difference for a freshman is learning how to play through contact and the decision-making, the decisiveness. He can do so many different things.”
Duke coach Jon Scheyer talks with Cayden Boozer during action against the Arkansas Razorbacks during the first half of the CBS Thanksgiving Classic at the United Center on November 27, 2025 in Chicago. Michael Reaves Getty Images
It was only the third time Boozer cracked the 30-minute mark this season, and the other two aren’t surprising: Duke’s other two neutral-site showcases against quality opposition, against Texas in Charlotte and against Kansas at Madison Square Garden.
Because of his father, and because of his decision to follow him to Duke along with twin brother Cayden, and because of his own reputation, Cameron Boozer arrived on campus as a new phenomenon, perhaps not as preternaturally marketable as Cooper Flagg, his immediate predecessor as Duke’s anointed freshman, but a sensation in his own right.
If he hadn’t had a game like this yet, it was perhaps only because Duke hadn’t needed it from him yet. But with the Blue Devils out of sorts, they leaned on Boozer and he leaned on the Razorbacks, over and over again. It wasn’t the 35 he scored against Indiana State, but that was a 38-point win. This was a one-possession game with as few as three minutes to go, and the Blue Devils trailed by as many as seven midway through the second half. And it wasn’t until the final minutes that Duke really seemed to dig in on defense.
Duke’s Cameron Boozer (12) celebrates with Caleb Foster against the Arkansas Razorbacks during the first half of the CBS Thanksgiving Classic at the United Center on November 27, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. Michael Reaves Getty Images
Combine all of that from Boozer with a big late 3-pointer from Caleb Foster, with 15 points and a career-high eight assists in the same building where he set his career-high for scoring as a freshman — “good vibes,” Foster said — and it was enough to keep Duke undefeated at the beginning of the toughest stretch of the Blue Devils’ schedule.
From here, it’s back home to play Florida on Tuesday and then a trip to Michigan State — undefeated after a 16-point win over North Carolina earlier Thursday — before a return to the Garden to play Texas Tech. (There’s a home game against Lipscomb in there, too, which is threatening only as a potential trip game, no offense to the Bisons.)
Talented freshmen like Boozer don’t come along often, even if they come along more often at Duke than anywhere else. They don’t always take over games, or flash the true depth and dimension of their talent and ability. But there are nights like this, when the best player on the floor is truly the best player on the floor, when the opposing coach says “Cameron was a beast,” when one player can rise above and be the difference between winning and losing.
And was.
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This story was originally published November 27, 2025 at 10:48 PM.
Sports columnist Luke DeCock joined The News & Observer in 2000 and has covered nine Final Fours, the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl and the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup win in 2006. He is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, was the 2020 winner of the National Headliner Award as the country’s top sports columnist and is a three-time North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year.
CHICAGO – For the next four days, voters, protestors, agitators, politicians, pundits, national and local media from around the country and the world, and Chicago residents will meet in the center of the city for the Democratic National Convention (DNC). More than 50,000 people will be visiting the city, according to local reports.
Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
Many of those visitors have made their way to the United Center, host site of the DNC, while many others were protesting everything from the war in Gaza, the indoctrination of current United States Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, abortion, and former United States President Donald Trump and all things MAGA. The city’s pre-segregated “free speech zone” was at Park No. 578, which is located on W. Maypole Avenue, a quarter-mile from the United Center. The more popular site for protests, however, was at Union Park, which is a larger park and more suitable for gatherings like protests and concerts, for example.
“Are you planning to vote in the upcoming election?” Nearly every person The Atlanta Voice asked had one answer: “No.”
Sheila Williams sat in a wheelchair sheltered under a tent as protesters marched down Washington Boulevard. Pinned on either side of her jacket were mini flyers declaring that “the whole damn system’s got to go,” and to “stop following the bourgeois electoral bullsh*t.”
“At my age, I should be at home in a rocking chair, but here I am with my walker out here to say, enough is enough,” Williams said. “All these people out here in the streets today that are protesting about racism, protesting about abortion rights, protesting about genocide, protesting about police brutality, protesting about so many things that are elements of this system. America was never great.”
Leo Pargo, a leading member of the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity Chicago. Photo by Laura Nwogu/The Atlanta Voice
“We’re coming into an unprecedented election. We’re saying this year isn’t going to be a normal election year,” said Leo Pargo, a leading member of the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity Chicago. “Biden-Harris on one side supporting this genocide. The fascist Trump on the other side is going after women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, demonizing migrants that are forced to come here from all over the world. We’re saying this isn’t a time to side between one oppression or another.
Over by the United Center, Art H. sold t-shirts and hats with pro-Harris/Walz themes on them. He said his t-shirts have the clearest photo of Harris on them out of any people are going to see on the streets. “People don’t understand, Trump understands the visibility of his face is how you get your image out there,” Art explained.
Asked if he was going to vote in November, Art, a resident of Seattle, Washington who is in town for the convention, said he was. “It’s my duty.”
Darius Smith, working security outside of a library a block away from the United Center, said he was also planning to vote in this election.
“I’m going to vote out of obligation,” Smith said. “Ever since I was 18 years old I always tried to vote for the candidate that benefits poor people the most.”
T-shirst for sale on a street corner near the United Center in Chicago. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
On Monday night, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA), and Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan spoke about the power of the collective vote. United States President Joseph R. Biden and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton kicked things off. Former two-term United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama are the featured speakers on Tuesday while fellow former two-term Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton on Wednesday. Clinton will share the marquee with United States Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
There will be more potential voters from around the country making their way to Chicago before the election takes place. Whether or not this presidential election garners more voters than the nearly 150 million voters that took part in 2016 remains to be seen. A lot of those voters will be a part of the working class that both campaigns are targeting this election. The “9-5” workers that make up the majority of American voters. During the reporting for this story The Atlanta Voice asked founder and CEO of Homebase John Waldmann why he believes nearly 35% of hourly workers are undecided with less than 90 days until Election Day, November 5?
“It’s possible some local workers feel it’s too early to know which candidate is going to address their unique concerns,” Waldmann said via email. “The good thing is that there is still time to win over these voters. Our data uncovers a few areas where candidates can address those needs.
Waldmann said hourly workers may be more vulnerable to policy changes that directly impact their livelihoods, from inflation to taxes on tips. “More than other audiences, they may be waiting for debates and more substantive policy discussions before they decide on their preferred candidate,” said Waldmann.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are just over 80 million wage workers (ages 16 and older).Asked if that is a demographic/voting block both sides of the aisle need to target, Waldmann said there was no doubt about it.
“Hourly workers account for over 80 million American workers. Small businesses employ nearly half of the American workforce and represent almost 44% of America’s GDP,” Waldmann said. “Their votes are incredibly powerful, and matter more than ever this election cycle. Considering nearly 35% of hourly workers are undecided, there’s a huge opportunity for both candidates to dig into hourly workers’ concerns and priorities to gain their trust – and votes.”
When speaking with voters, inflation came up most often when asked what concerned them the most this election season. Waldmann believes inflation has a direct influence on hourly workers’ day-to-day financial stability and overall quality of life.
“More importantly, this impact often feels immediate and personal. With the cost of living skyrocketing across many cities, and inflation making it challenging to afford everyday goods and services like groceries, gas, and housing, hourly workers could be feeling the pinch more acutely when prices rise,” he said. “Hourly workers aren’t just young folks holding a summer job – they are also adults with families to take care of and bills to pay. More than anything, they want a candidate who makes them feel heard.”
Teyana Taylor isn’t impressed with Iman Shumpert’s solo parenting skills.
In new court filings, the White Men Can’t Jump star took aim at her estranged husband, accusing him of failing to provide adequate care for their two daughters, Junie, 8, and Rue, 3. In the filings, which were obtained by People on Wednesday, the 33-year-old claimed the former NBA star “consistently fails to properly care for the minor children,” specifically accusing him of “failing to feed them despite being in the [marital residence] with the minor children.” That does not sound good at all…
She also claimed that he’s been “smoking marijuana and being under the influence while caring for the minor children,” which is obviously a big no-no.
Another concerning incident put forward in the filings alleges that Iman once put the young girls “in a rideshare in Chicago, which resulted in the minor children being dropped off at the United Center [arena] in general population while he utilized the services of a private driver.”
WTF!
(c) MEGA/WENN
The papers added:
“Respondent consistently demonstrates a clear disregard for the safety of the minor children.”
The exes announced their separation back in September, but they had already been apart for months. In November, sources told TMZ the Bare Wit Me singer was not happy Iman decided to list their legal names in his response to her divorce filing, which outed their legal proceedings to the public.
Per the outlet, the Cleveland Cavaliers player also previously denied his ex’s claim that he made her feel endangered when they were a couple, something she implied when she cited “cruel treatment” as the reason for the split. At that time, he also insisted that he’s never been irresponsible when it comes to caring for the kids, but obviously, Teyana has hit back hard at that statement by supplying this alleged evidence to the court. So far, it doesn’t appear as though he’s responded to these latest allegations yet.
