En Vogue will take the halftime stage for Game 5 of the WNBA Finals on Monday, October 26, bringing an Oakland-rooted act to San Francisco’s Chase Center for a pivotal Golden State Valkyries-Atlanta Dream matchup. Dinah Jane, known for Fifth Harmony, is scheduled to perform the national anthem before tipoff.
The music booking arrives with the championship series deadlocked. Golden State’s 67-62 win on Saturday evened the best-of-seven Finals at two games apiece, ensuring that neither club can clinch the title in Game 5. The winner instead will take a 3-2 series lead and sit one win from the championship. Game 5 is scheduled for 5 p.m. Pacific, or 8 p.m. Eastern, with USA Network and Peacock listed for the broadcast.
For a Finals game with an especially high-stakes sporting setup, the halftime selection also gives the night a local angle. En Vogue formed in Oakland, while Game 5 is being played across the bay in San Francisco. That makes the performance more than a standard arena intermission booking: it places a Bay Area group in front of a home-region crowd during the Valkyries’ first Finals appearance.
A Game 5 with no clincher, but enormous leverage
In a best-of-seven series, the first team to earn four victories wins the championship. At 2-2, Game 5 cannot end the Finals because the winner will only have its third win. It remains one of the most consequential games on the schedule, however. The team that prevails moves within a single victory of the title, while the losing side must win the next two games to recover.
Golden State arrives home after its 67-62 Game 4 result in Atlanta. The five-point margin is a reminder that this series has been closely contested rather than settled by a runaway performance. It also gives the Valkyries momentum entering the Chase Center date, though Atlanta has the same number of wins and a direct opportunity to reclaim control of the series.
The Valkyries’ path to this moment has been unusually quick. This is the franchise’s first trip to the Finals in only its second season. Golden State reached the championship round by sweeping the defending champion Las Vegas Aces in three games, following a three-game opening-round series against the Dallas Wings.
That sequence matters to the atmosphere surrounding Monday’s game. A first Finals trip gives the home audience a milestone event before the ball is even tipped, and a tied series means the building will not be staging a ceremonial celebration or farewell. Both teams are still fully in the race; every possession, timeout and halftime break exists inside a game that could shape the rest of the championship.
En Vogue brings a Bay Area connection to Chase Center
En Vogue’s booking extends a run of arena appearances for the group. Earlier this year, En Vogue joined TLC and Salt-N-Pepa for the “IT’S ICONIC” tour, a shared bill announced in March. Its run was scheduled from August through October, with a final listed stop in Concord, California.
Related coverage includes En Vogue Set for WNBA Finals Game 5 Halftime Show.
The Game 5 appearance places the group in another large-scale live setting, but with a very different format. A halftime performance has to operate inside the strict timing of a sports broadcast and a live game’s intermission. It is not a full concert set, and its role is to keep energy up in the arena while the teams prepare for the second half. For viewers at home, it is part of the broader event presentation surrounding the Finals; for attendees, it is a live performance woven into a championship night.
The choice also fits the local character of the occasion. Sports championship entertainment often draws on the host city or region, and En Vogue’s Oakland identity creates a direct Bay Area connection without turning the game into a purely Golden State-only celebration. Atlanta, naturally, has already had its own locally resonant music moments during the Games 3 and 4 dates.
Dinah Jane’s anthem performance adds another pop-music component before the game. The anthem and halftime slots serve different functions: the pregame anthem takes place before competition begins, while the halftime act is positioned between the first and second halves. Together, the assignments make Game 5 a music-programmed event as well as the most important game either club has played in this Finals so far.
Atlanta’s home games leaned into the city’s music history
The series’ Atlanta stops have already featured a deliberately city-centered slate of performers. Big Boi headlined the Game 4 halftime show at State Farm Arena and brought out Sleepy Brown. Their set drew from the OutKast catalog, including “Ms. Jackson,” “So Fresh, So Clean” and “The Way You Move.”
That performance was not an OutKast reunion. André 3000 did not take part, an important distinction given the group’s history and the understandable expectations that can follow a Big Boi appearance built around those songs. Big Boi wore a brown fur coat for the set, while Sleepy Brown wore a gray fur coat.
Elsewhere in the Game 4 presentation, actress Crystal Renee Hayslett performed the national anthem before tipoff. Pastor Troy performed “No Mo Play in G.A.” during a separate break in play, rather than appearing as part of the halftime show.
Game 3 also featured Atlanta artists and connections. Quavo led that game’s halftime performance, while Q Parker of 112 performed before the matchup. Across the two dates, the entertainment programming reached across several eras of Atlanta music rather than relying on one act or one sound.
The contrast between the Atlanta dates and Monday’s San Francisco game is part of what makes Finals entertainment compelling. The series travels, but each arena can give its date a distinct local voice. Big Boi, Sleepy Brown, Quavo, Q Parker and Pastor Troy made Atlanta’s games feel rooted in Atlanta. En Vogue’s appearance gives Golden State’s return home a comparable regional thread.
Music has been a visible part of sports-event staging well beyond this series, especially when a game is placed in an arena that can accommodate a concert-scale production. For another recent look at how a live performance can become part of a crowd-driven event, see this report on J. Cole bringing fans into his Birmingham set. The WNBA Finals format is necessarily more compressed, but the goal is similarly clear: make a live audience feel that it attended a distinct occasion rather than merely watched a game.
What to watch around Game 5
The central story remains the game itself. Golden State and Atlanta are even, and the winner will take the series’ first 3-2 advantage. The Valkyries have a chance to protect their home floor and move to within one victory of a championship in their second season. The Dream have the chance to immediately answer after the Game 4 loss and carry a lead back into the final stretch of the series.
- Halftime performer: En Vogue.
- National anthem: Dinah Jane of Fifth Harmony.
- Venue: Chase Center in San Francisco.
- Series status: Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries tied 2-2.
- Game 5 start time: 5 p.m. Pacific / 8 p.m. Eastern on Monday, October 26.
- Listed broadcast outlets: USA Network and Peacock.
- Next scheduled game: Game 6 on Thursday, October 29.
En Vogue’s halftime show cannot alter the scoreboard, of course, but it gives Game 5 an additional sense of place. The decisive sporting pressure of a tied Finals will share the evening with a performance from one of the Bay Area’s own groups, while the anthem assignment and broadcast setup round out the event’s pregame and halftime presentation.
