The Washington Mystics want to keep the block party going all season long
On Saturday, June 1, the Washington Mystics played their first-ever game at the Entertainment and Sports Arena (ESA) in southeast Washington, DC. At practice earlier that week, head coach Mike Thibault told Her Hoop Stats, “I just want the fans to see what an exciting atmosphere [ESA] can be for the season.”
It’s safe to say that opening night delivered on that promise. The festivities began on Saturday afternoon with a basketball-themed block party that included two outdoor youth clinics, knockout and 3-on-3 contests, an NBA 2K Gaming station, an autograph session with former Mystics players Monique Currie and Chamique Holdsclaw, and live music.
The party moved indoors just ahead of tip-off. The Entertainment and Sports Arena seats 4,200 people — about one-fifth as many as the Mystics’ prior home, the 20,400-seat Capital One Arena — and was sold out for opening night. Some fans were in for a special thrill: everyone who became a season ticket-holder by May 15 got their names featured on a floor decal on the brand-new ESA court. A Mystics team source told Her Hoop Stats that the decal contains the names of over 1,400 season ticket-holders.
The Mystics hope that ESA can provide a strong home court advantage throughout the season — a theme that players and coaches alike repeated in the weeks and months before the home opener. The team source told Her Hoop Stats, “We’ve incorporated the tagline ‘New Home Court Advantage’ on a lot of our advertisements to emphasize that the Mystics aren’t just playing at a new arena, but rather an arena that will give us a home court advantage that we’ve never truly had before.”
On Saturday, the Mystics seemed to have that advantage, as they raced out to a 26–16 lead after the first quarter en route to a 96–75 win over Atlanta. Second-year guard Ariel Atkins scored a game-high 21 points and four other Mystics scored in double figures. After the game, Atkins told Monumental Sports Network sideline reporter Dan Nolan, “Home court advantage, baby. That’s what it felt like.” Addressing the fans, she added, “Continue the yelling and continue to be our sixth man.”
While the Mystics won’t host a block party before every home game this season, they are committed to creating the same loud, festive, and supportive environment night in and night out. “Our goal is to be at capacity for all weekend games and exceeding 2,500 for all weekday games,” the Mystics team source told Her Hoop Stats.
One outlier will be the team’s annual “Camp Day” game, which hosts kids from local summer camps for a day game at Capital One Arena. This year, that game will be on Wednesday, July 10 against the Phoenix Mercury. “Camp Day is always one of our favorite games of the season,” the team source told Her Hoop Stats. “The energy that the camp groups bring to the arena is always infectious, and we love having the opportunity to showcase our game to a younger generation. With such great interest shown by local camps, Capital One Arena was the only building that would be able to accommodate everyone.”
The Mystics front office has also added several promotions and partnerships to try to maximize the fan experience at the new arena. The team’s sponsors include Deloitte (new for 2019), Giant, Capital One, Geico, Leidos, Alibaba, and MedStar. Geico is sponsoring the team’s Girl Scout takeover on June 9, and Deloitte is sponsoring a Demystifying STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — game on August 11. The Pride Celebration (June 29), Military Appreciation Night (July 13), 2000s Night (July 30), and Block Out Cancer Game (August 18) are all on the calendar. This season’s giveaways include Mystics wallets at the home opener, courtesy of Capital One, and Elena Delle Donne bobbleheads on August 14, courtesy of Giant. In addition, the Mystics will hand out different cheer cards at every game that fans can collect throughout the season.
The Mystics team source emphasized interaction between players and fans as a goal for the season. The Mystics expect ESA to provide “an intimate fan experience” and a stronger “connection with the players,” and the team will showcase players’ personalities in social media content and other fan outreach throughout the season. For example, ahead of the 2019 WNBA Draft, the team released a video featuring point guard Natasha Cloud — whom the source called “one of the brightest personalities in the entire WNBA” — running around ESA expressing her excitement. The source added that the Mystics “want to make our players more relatable to a larger audience. A lot of the images you’ll see this season are to bring forth that our players are much more than just athletes.” A podcast may even be in the cards, following the lead of the Connecticut Sun, Minnesota Lynx, and Dallas Wings; the source said only that the Mystics are “working on it.”
Despite all of the excitement surrounding the new arena, the Mystics are not viewing this as an opportunity to increase ticket costs. The team reports that single-game and season ticket prices are the same as or lower than in Capital One Arena last year, depending on the specific seats. However, due to an increase in the number of season tickets sold, the Mystics expect to increase their ticket revenue in 2019, creating a win-win-win situation for fans, players, and the organization’s bottom line.
Win-win-win is exactly what the Mystics plan to do on the court this season. After their first two games, their record is 1–1, but they lead the league in offensive efficiency and have 7–2 odds of winning the WNBA Finals, second only to Las Vegas. According to the team source, “The players are certainly trying to use last year’s Finals run as motivation … They got a taste of what winning a championship could be like.”
If the Mystics secure a home game in the 2019 postseason, chances are it’ll be a sellout at ESA, with a raucous crowd ready to provide the advantage Atkins praised after the home opener. And if the Mystics win a championship, odds are that the team will have the ultimate block party: a championship parade through the nation’s capital.
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