From marquee concerts and professional basketball to pickleball and Ironman, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden has been much more than the iconic home of the BNP Paribas Open over the past quarter-century.

So when the WTA needed a proven venue for world-class events to stage this year’s FAGE WTA Finals, it had a ready host in waiting.

The elite season finale, to be played inside the intimate Stadium 2, promises to be another memorable chapter in the facility’s rich history.

At various times over the past two decades, the familiar courts of Tennis Paradise have given way to NBA hardwood, dozens of pickleball courts and an Ironman finishing chute. The grounds have also welcomed some of the biggest names in music, from Tom Petty and The Who to Gladys Knight and Jon Batiste.

So when the world's top eight singles players and doubles teams arrive for the season finale from Nov. 8-15, they will be adding another chapter to a surprisingly varied history at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. 

Rocking the Garden

Twenty years ago, there was barely a racquet in sight when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers took over the Tennis Garden on Oct. 21, 2006.

Jackson Browne was also on the bill, but the night brought an additional treat when Stevie Nicks joined Petty on stage during his 30th-anniversary tour.

Just three weeks later, another Rock & Roll Hall of Fame heavyweight came to town.

The Who played the Tennis Garden on Nov. 11, with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend delivering a set that included “Who Are You,” “Baba O’Riley,” “My Generation,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Pinball Wizard.” 

The Garden would go on to host artists including Luis Miguel, Melissa Etheridge, Tower of Power, Mindi Abair and Gladys Knight. 

And in 2018, the venue leaned even further into the desert's music-festival culture.

The two-night Indian Wells Music Festival transformed the shaded pavilion into an intimate 2,000-seat concert venue, with Jonny Lang, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Mindi Abair appearing on the opening night and Robert Cray and Jon Batiste among the following day's performers. 

A year later the event returned as Garden Jam, headlined by Buddy Guy and Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, with Los Lobos and Jimmie Vaughan also on the bill.

NBA, Anyone?

Perhaps no transformation, however, was quite as striking as the night an NBA court appeared in Stadium 1.

On Oct. 11, 2008, the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets met at Indian Wells in the first outdoor NBA game in 36 years.

Steve Nash, Shaquille O'Neal and Grant Hill were among the Phoenix starters and 16,236 fans packed the stadium for the nationally televised preseason game. Instead of a tennis court, they looked down on a full NBA hardwood floor sitting beneath the desert sky. 

There was just one complication: the wind. The teams combined to make just three of 27 attempts from three-point range as Denver won 77-72. 

But the experiment was enough of a success that the NBA came back the following year.

This time the Golden State Warriors were the opposition and among their starting five was a 21-year-old rookie named Stephen Curry.

Long before becoming the NBA's all-time leader in three-pointers, Curry showed a glimpse of what was to come in the desert, finishing with 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in Golden State's 104-101 victory before 14,979 fans. 

The Suns returned for a third consecutive outdoor game in 2010, beating a Dallas Mavericks team featuring Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler 98-90 before another crowd of more than 15,000.

Pickleball Comes to Town

A decade later, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden underwent another dramatic change.

When the USA Pickleball National Championships arrived in 2018, the venue was converted into 44 match courts plus a championship court for nine days of competition.

More than 2,200 players contested upwards of 4,300 matches in the first Indian Wells edition, with coverage streamed nationally on ESPN3 and a highlights show airing on ESPNEWS.

Nationals returned in 2019, 2021 and 2022 (the 2020 edition was cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic) as Indian Wells became one of the showcase venues for a sport experiencing explosive growth.

By the final year, nearly 2,300 players were competing for $150,000 in prize money. A crowd of 5,522 on Championship Sunday was, at the time, the largest recorded attendance for a pickleball event.

Finish Line
Not every sporting event at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden began there.

For the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells-La Quinta in December 2018, more than 2,300 competitors from 37 countries and 47 states began with a 1.2-mile swim at Lake Cahuilla before tackling a 56-mile bike course.

Only after that did they arrive at the venue.

From there, athletes set off on a 13.1-mile run through the Indian Wells Golf Resort before returning to the Garden and a palm-lined finishing chute. 

The Indian Wells Tennis Garden went on to become an established hub for the event, serving as the location for the Ironman Village, athlete check-in and transition area as well as the finish.

On the eve of this year's BNP Paribas Open, the venue hosted its first 5k Fun Run, with former WTA World No. 1 Naomi Osaka participating.

Serve it up!

There have been plenty of other tennis events, too.

The Indian Wells Tennis Garden has hosted the prestigious Easter Bowl junior championships, the combined men's and women's Oracle Challenger Series and, in 2021, an entire World TeamTennis season.

That WTT campaign brought five teams to Stadium 2 for 31 matches over 16 days, culminating in the Orange County Breakers winning the championship. 

But the FAGE WTA Finals will operate on another level.

From Nov. 8-15 the Indian Wells Tennis Garden will become home to the WTA's season-ending showpiece, bringing together the eight best singles players and eight best doubles teams from the 2026 season. 

It will look and feel very different from those nights when NBA stars took to hardwood in Stadium 1, when rock legends played beneath the desert sky or when dozens of pickleball courts covered the grounds.

But for a venue that has spent more than two decades finding new ways to reinvent itself, hosting another of world sport's premier events feels right at home.