Women's sports bars rally for WNBA Final after schedule change. 'This would never happen in men's sports.'

Sorry, ladies. Prime time is for the boys.

Because of a scheduling conflict, the NBA moved Thursday's Game 6 of the WNBA Finals hours earlier so a regular season NBA game can tip off that night at Atlanta's State Farm Arena.

Now the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream face off at 11:30 a.m. CT.

To accommodate the unusually early start time, at least three Chicago women's sports bars plan to open well before their normal hours so that fans can watch the game.

Babe’s Sports Bar in Logan Square will open at 9 a.m., Level Sporting Club in Lake View will open at 11 a.m. and Whiskey Girl Tavern in Edgewater will open at the start of the game.

"We are going to prove that even if you try to f*** with us, we're still going to make this work," said Nora McConnell-Johnson, owner of Babe's.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

McConnell-Johnson is opening her bar early under a temporary rebrand: Babe's Cafe. The bar will serve drip coffee from New Wave Coffee, matcha lattes made by one of Babe's bartenders and homemade versions of McDonald's McGriddle breakfast sandwich.

"In the women's sports world, you're used to a lot of last-minute changes because it's so often dismissed. But this is a new low that shocked even us," McConnell-Johnson said. "This would never happen in men's sports."

The Valkyries are up in the best-of-seven series 3-2 against the Dream. If Golden State wins, they take home their first championship. If Atlanta wins, they push the Valkyries to a deciding Game 7.

Their game had been scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. CT. But that conflicted with the Atlanta Hawks playing the Cleveland Cavaliers an hour earlier, also at State Farm Arena.

Atlanta Dream's owners claim they flagged the scheduling conflict two months ago, but say the NBA ignored their concerns. Meanwhile, the NBA claims moving the Hawks game would violate league rules that require teams to have at least 22 hours between consecutively scheduled games.

Despite the earlier start time, the Atlanta Dream sold out the 17,000-seat arena. As of Wednesday afternoon, plenty of seats are still for sale for the Hawks-Cavaliers game, according to ticket retailers Ticketmaster and SeatGeek.

McConnell-Johnson expects her bar to be packed for the game Thursday. Babe's has been full for the championship games so far, and they were counting on that revenue for Game 6. The bar, which opened in September 2025, turned a profit in its first year, McConnell-Johnson said.

"Women’s sports is good business. When you invest, you see great returns. When you don't, you're leaving money on the table," she said.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Clarissa Flores, owner of Level Sporting Club, feels the same way. Changing the game's start time hurts the players, fans and small businesses like hers that depend on bumps in revenue from championship games, she said.

"It's disrespectful to the fans, it's disrespectful to the athletes, it's disrespectful to the teams," Flores says. She opened her bar five months ago with financial backing from several female athletes.

She also expects her bar to be packed. Her staff reworked their schedules to come in and supporters from the community have volunteered to help out.

"We’ll be sold out tomorrow," Flores said. "Why? Because the community is turning out for women’s basketball."