The WNBA is growing. Whether that’s in the league’s perpetually rising television ratings, the new teams coming into the W over the next few years, or any other number of metrics, things are going pretty well for the WNBA right now. With growth usually comes change, and on Thursday night, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert laid out some of the ways that the league is going to tweak its schedule during both the regular season and playoffs.
Engelbert spoke about these changes, which have all been approved by the league’s Board of Governors, ahead of the start of the 2024 WNBA Finals between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx. Starting next season, teams will play 44 games during the regular season, while the playoffs will go from a 2-1 format in the first round — i.e. the higher seed hosts the first two games, while a win-or-go-home Game 3 is hosted by the lower seed if necessary — to a 1-1-1 format, which guarantees that the lower seed will host a home game. And when it comes to the Finals, Engelbert announced that the league will go from a best-of-5 to a best-of-7 format to crown its champion.
There was also a bit of news pertaining to one of the new expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries. Englebert announced that the league will hold its Draft Lottery in November, and when the WNBA Draft rolls around next year, the Valkyries will have the fifth pick in each round.
