When the Seattle Storm take to the court for the 2019 season, the team will remain within the Seattle city limits.
The Storm announced that their 2019 home court will indeed be the Alaska Airlines Arena on the campus of the University of Washington.
The team had to find an alternative home court for the next two seasons as their incumbent home floor – KeyArena – will be renovated into a new arena at Seattle Center. The newly built arena will likely be the home of NHL and NBA teams in addition to the Storm.
Interestingly enough, the announcement from the Storm only applies to the 2019 season. KeyArena is slated to undergo renovations that will displace the Storm for the next two seasons. The City of Seattle is set to pay Force 10 Hoops, which owns the Storm, $100,000 per season the Storm are displaced from KeyArena.
The Storm signed a lease with the City of Seattle last year that is set to keep the team in the new building through the 2028 WNBA season.
When the City of Seattle released an Environmental Impact Study on the KeyArena renovations, it mentioned four possible arenas – including Kent’s ShoWare Center and the Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett that the team could move to.
Those four arenas were mentioned in a Beyond The W story regarding where the Storm could play for the next four seasons.
According to the Seattle Times, portable air conditioning will be installed at the venue as all WNBA arenas must have some form of air conditioning.
By: Akiem Bailum (@AkiemBailum on Twitter, Instagram)
