Shelter for the Storm

As a collegiate rower at Yale, Ginny Gilder and her teammates stripped naked, wrote “Title IX” on their chests, and marched into the director of physical education’s office. They demanded the university provide the women’s crew team with a locker room and showers at the boathouse, just as the men’s team already had. They were tired of sitting on the bus, wet and cold after practice, waiting for the men to shower before they headed back to the university.

Nearly 50 years later, Gilder is still pushing for equal treatment of women athletes, and this time it’s culminating in a state-of-the art basketball practice facility and headquarters for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm. The Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance opens in March on a 54,000-square-foot lot in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood, right behind an aging QFC store.

For Gilder and fellow Storm owners Lisa Brummel and Dawn Trudeau, the new building represents a huge win for women athletes. It will be the first practice facility designed and built from the ground up exclusively for a professional women’s franchise.

“I want women to have the same access as men,” Gilder says. “It’s the right thing to do from an equity side.”

For Seattle Storm players, a facility of their own is a critical step in achieving the conditions male professional basketball players have long taken for granted. Storm star player Jewell Loyd is used to watching guys “get the cool stuff first,” both in college basketball and in the WNBA. When Loyd shows up to training camp in April, it will be the first time she’s not practicing on a borrowed, dimly lit basement court at nearby Seattle Pacific University.

“You’re in the highest league in the world but you don’t have any practice facility for yourself,” Loyd says. “This is a big step in the right direction.”

The Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance is the latest accomplishment for the Storm’s all-female ownership group. Gilder, Brummel, and Trudeau bought the team in 2008 from the Seattle SuperSonics, saving the franchise from being relocated to Oklahoma City. In the years since, they’ve won three more WNBA championships, adding to the first title won before the purchase. With a valuation of $151 million in 2022, the Storm are now the highest-valued franchise in the WNBA and all of women’s sports.

The team’s female owners knew when they bought the team that they needed to continue to grow their fan base in order to be profitable. The Storm last season averaged almost 9,000 fans per game, thirdhighest in the league.

“We are not billionaires,” Gilder says. “We knew from the beginning that we had to make this business work.”

Gilder and Brummel began talking about the idea of building their own facility after the team claimed the WNBA championship in 2018, but the renovation of Key Arena and the pandemic put plans on pause. When the team won another title in 2020, Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez texted Gilder and Brummel late that night: “Are you building this now?” Seattle’s mayor at the time, Jenny Durkan, also championed the project.

“The reason this facility is coming into existence,” Gilder says, “is because our city supports women and women’s sports.”

To raise part of the $64 million to finance the building, the Storm owners sold an 11% stake in the team to 12 investor groups. The new investors are primarily women, LGBTQ, and BIPOC individuals, reinforcing Gilder, Brummel, and Trudeau’s commitment to diverse ownership. Some of the investors had approached Storm ownership years earlier with interest in the team.

“It was fascinating to see how many people wanted to be part of this, partly because women’s sports are growing so fast, and partly because they love the Storm,” Brummel notes.

One of the investors is Michelle Cardinal, founder and chairwoman of Portland ad agency Rain the Growth. Cardinal wanted in on the Storm after watching WNBA viewership grow as she looked for media buying deals for her clients. As a skier, hiker, swimmer, and scuba diver, Cardinal loves anything to do with sports, but the upward trajectory of the Storm’s fan base was what sold her.

“I’ve had the opportunity to invest in other teams,” Cardinal says. “This team interests me the most because of the sheer magnitude of growth and what it will be.”

Dream Variation Ventures co-founders Jamie Van Horne Robinson and Jaison Robinson wanted to be part of a successful, growing franchise that prioritizes diversity and female athletes. They are fans of the team and often take their young children to games. Both Robinsons are athletes, and Jamie knew Brummel through the Yale alumni women’s basketball network. Though they considered investing in several other sports teams, the Storm won out.

“It was a pretty easy decision to invest in one of the top teams in the WNBA, and as part of building a state-of-the-art facility,” Van Horne Robinson says.

The Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance will include two indoor professional basketball courts and two outdoor three-on-three courts. When not playing basketball, players can access a lap pool, hot and cold plunge, a nutrition center, locker rooms, a player’s lounge, a strength and conditioning center, and a health and wellness suite. The second floor of the 50,000-square-foot building will house the Storm’s headquarters.

For Storm players, the new practice facility will be a welcome change from their former digs. Court space at Seattle Pacific University was available to the team only between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Loyd described the gym atmosphere as “humbling” after playing collegiately at Notre Dame. The team practiced on a basement court with an old scoreboard with lights that needed to be twisted in and out. Storm players used a cramped locker room with no air conditioning and a small refrigerator. SPU students could wander in and out.

Several current and former Storm players, including Loyd, Sue Bird, and Breanna Stewart, worked with the building’s designers to provide input on what they wanted in a practice facility. Loyd said many of the ideas came down to basics, such as bigger locker rooms and a fully equipped weight room. Loyd pushed for ample space for the team’s trainers to work on the athletes, so they’d no longer be taking turns with physical therapy bench space. The players wanted wired-in speakers on the court, so they didn’t have to carry their own speakers to the gym.

Though Loyd said many players have a love/hate relationship with swimming laps, they knew they needed a pool for recovery workouts, as pool time is hard to come by in Seattle. Architects considered that the women are taller than average, which influences everything from furniture to shower design.

The athletes also requested places where they could gather as a team. Loyd envisions walking by the lounge, seeing teammates hanging out, and joining in for a meal, conversation, or video game session.

“We’ve had no place to reset and take a break together,” Loyd says. “It’s important for team chemistry and bonding.”

Cardinal views the improved conditions for the athletes as both the right thing to do and a business decision. As the WNBA continues to grow, players negotiating contracts notice teams that can offer topnotch facilities. The Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance will set the team apart.

“It’s the first of its kind,” Cardinal says. “The Aces have their own facility, but it’s in a strip mall in Vegas. It’s not designed for women by women.”

Gilder hopes the facility will be the first of many across the league. “We want to change expectations across the country about what we should expect for women’s sports facilities,” Gilder says.

The facility will also be available to young players. Storm Hoops Academy will offer youth clinics, including Jr. Storm for players ages 6 to 14 and Storm Elite for high school players preparing to play college basketball. In addition, Ball for All will provide free camps and clinics for underserved youth and those with disabilities.

The facility won’t act as a community center where kids can just drop in and shoot hoops, but the team and city of Seattle envision the space as a way to expand youth basketball programming. The Storm has a director of youth sports, and team coaches and players will be involved in the programs.

“We’ll really be able to help the next generation and give back to the community that has showed up for us,” Loyd says.

The Storm’s owners landed on the Interbay neighborhood for the facility because it is easy to access for players who live in urban Seattle. The Gilder family controlled the property, allowing the Storm to circumvent the time-consuming search for a suitable building site. The Storm purchased the property from the family at market value.

The neighborhood, while partly industrial, has a growing athletic component and is already home to baseball fields and the Interbay Golf Center. Gilder is an investor in Pickle at the Palms, a planned indoor/ outdoor pickleball facility awaiting permits. The pickleball center will include 20 courts and will be built on land owned by Gilder.

“I love the idea of Interbay being a neighborhood that’s about sports,” Gilder says.

For Gilder, Brummel, and Trudeau, the grand opening of The Storm Center for Basketball Performance will mark their next achievement in decades of championing women’s sports. They’ve long been fierce competitors and consider themselves proud members of the Title IX generation. Trudeau became an ardent supporter of women’s sports when she and her female classmates dressed for gym class and then were forced to sit on the sidelines, watching the boys play.

Brummel played four sports at Yale at the same time Gilder was rowing for the Yale crew team. Following graduation, Brummel was drafted to play professional basketball. Gilder qualified for two Olympic teams in rowing and won an Olympic silver medal in the quadruple scull at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“Sports are in our DNA,” Gilder says. “Sports give people a tremendous amount of joy.”