On May 5th, 2025, the Dallas Wings women’s basketball team in Texas welcomed Paige Bueckers to their lineup as their first draft pick. Since she arrived, the team’s net worth has tripled, placing them 6th in the most valuable Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA)  teams, and in 2025, the Wings sold out of their season ticket memberships for the season in record time. A team that used to be murmured about is now receiving international media attention and recognition.

But what makes this particular team so special? The Wings team consists of 12 very talented players, but there are two who stand out: Paige Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale. 

Bueckers played for the well-known college basketball team, the University of Connecticut (UCONN) Huskies. When she graduated, she was named the WNBA Rookie of the Year in September 2025. In the first 24 hours of her being drafted into the Dallas Wings, site searches for Dallas Wings tickets jumped a whopping 351 percent.

Ogunbowale played for her college in Notre Dame, where she won the 2018 National Collegiate Athletic Association (or known as NCAA) Championship, and continued to be drafted in 2019 by the Wings. According to her biography, Ogunbowale is the first player in WNBA to average 20-plus points and lead the league in steals. 

Even people who aren’t caught up with basketball have heard about the Dallas Wings and their top players. 

“I don’t really watch or read anything about basketball, but the Dallas Wings team has been all over TikTok, and I’ve heard Bueckers’s and Ogunbowale’s names a few times,” freshman Winter Wahl commented. 

Not only that, but in the first half of the 2025 season, the Wings had one of the highest percentage growths in the WNBA league with a 22.9 percent increase in average attendance, compared to the same period in 2024. A stadium that was once struggling to attract enough fans to games, now consistently sells out games and yearly memberships.