Unrivaled rewrote the record books on Saturday night, drawing 21,490 fans to the Xfinity Mobile Arena and setting a new all-time attendance mark for a professional women’s basketball regular-season game.
At the centre of that breakthrough moment was Paige Bueckers, whose presence and perspective captured why the night felt bigger than a single league or result.
The sell-out crowd marked the largest attendance ever for a women’s professional regular-season game and the biggest event the arena has hosted.
In the process, Unrivaled surpassed the previous benchmark set during the 2024 WNBA season, when 20,711 fans packed the building for a game involving the Indiana Fever led by Caitlin Clark against the Washington Mystics.
This time, the spotlight belonged to a new league and a different format, but the message was the same: the audience is already there.
For Paige Bueckers of the Dallas Wings, the atmosphere was impossible to ignore from the moment warm-ups began.
“This is amazing! Even when we were warming up, the crowd was screaming, and they were just really there to support,” Bueckers said during her postgame press conference.
“You look up in the stands, and you just see so many different color jerseys because there’s just so many women to support, and so that’s really, really huge, and it’s beautiful to see, just because we feel like, again, like the women before us paved the way, and now we’re finally getting the recognition.”
On-court moments that matched the occasion
The basketball delivered as well. In the opening game, Kelsey Plum hit a game-winning basket and finished with 22 points to lift Phantom BC past Bueckers‘ Breeze in a tightly contested finish.
The second game raised the volume even higher, with Marina Mabrey putting together one of the most electric scoring performances of the season. Playing for the Lunar Owls, she erupted for 47 points, knocking down 18 field goals and 10 three-pointers as the crowd responded to nearly every shot.
Those performances reinforced why the record crowd mattered. Fans were not there for novelty alone. They stayed engaged because the level of play justified the stage, and the atmosphere fed directly back into the action on the floor.
Bueckers also pointed to how presentation and access played a role in making the night feel different.
“The media coverage accessibility on TV like we’re playing in an NBA arena, and sold out 21 thousand, so it’s just it really means a lot just because of me, like growing up watching the game and knowing how amazing those women were and how many people have paved the way, and then what we want for the next generation as well,” she noted.
“So it’s just really amazing to be a part of, and like we never want to take it for granted. Just these opportunities that are in front of us.”
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