Everything you need to know about the WNBA All-Star game

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The 2021 WNBA All-Star game will be played on Wednesday, July 14 (7 p.m. ET) at Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, the league announced today. The game, which will also be televised on ESPN, will feature WNBA All-Stars voted in from the USA women’s national team pool in a match-up against the remaining WNBA All-Stars voted in as part of a combination of fan, player, media and coach voting.

Fan voting for the WNBA All-Star 2021 game will tip-off on Tuesday, June 15 at 2 p.m. ET. Fans can vote through the WNBA.com voting page at wnba.com/vote or by using the WNBA App voting platforms. All current WNBA players will be eligible for selection. Two “2-for-1 Days” will allow fans to have their votes count twice on Sunday, June 20 and Sunday, June 27.

The selection of the All-Stars will be conducted through a combination of voting by fans (50 percent of the vote), current WNBA players (25 percent) and a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters (25 percent). The top 36 vote-getters—which will comprise at least (9) backcourt (15) frontcourt players—who are not members of the USA Basketball roster will then be provided to WNBA head coaches who will determine from that list the 12 players who will play for the Team WNBA All-Stars. Coaches will not be able to vote for their own players. WNBA All-Star 2021 rosters will be announced on Wednesday, June 30.

Las Vegas is a prime location for the All-Star game because the USA Basketball women’s national team will hold training camp in Las Vegas in July to prepare for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The team is lead by head coach Dawn Staley, who has won three Olympic gold medals as a player (1996, 2000, 2004) and two as an assistant coach (2008, 2016).

As part of the league’s 25th season celebrations, the WNBA will also honor the gold-medal winning 1996 U.S. Olympic Women’s Basketball Team with a special presentation during the All-Star game. Coached by Tara VanDerveer, that team competed in 52 games across the country and the world in the lead-up to the Olympic games in Atlanta. The team’s run to gold increased the visibility and popularity of women’s basketball and contributed to the founding of the WNBA in 1996.