Has the WNBA Outgrown Its Current Playoff Format?

Condensed scheduling, tough broadcast windows—there are no simple answers on how to fix the biggest issues of the postseason. For now, the Liberty and Lynx have a championship to play for.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images (Ionescu); Chris Marion/NBAE/Getty Images (Collier)

On Tuesday night, Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve ran through how the next two days would look for her team. They had just advanced to the WNBA Finals. But no champagne or confetti was to be seen. There was no time for a celebration.

“Recovery,” the veteran head coach began going over the schedule. “Got to fly out, go do the media circuit, get a scouting report in and go hoop. And you can’t talk about the schedule—whatever, I mean, who cares? Nobody’s going to feel bad for us.”

The Lynx clinched their championship series berth in Minneapolis on Tuesday. That gave them less than 48 hours until Game 1 of the Finals was scheduled for tipoff in New York on Thursday. The quick turnaround meant limited time for rest and even less for preparation: Minnesota held a media availability on Wednesday afternoon but did not schedule a full practice. Reeve and the Lynx did not complain. But it was hard not to notice just how compressed the schedule felt.

Or as New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart put it after her team clinched its own Finals berth on Sunday:

“This playoff schedule is extremely condensed,” Stewart said. “If you go to a Game 5, you have one day to prepare for Game 1 of the Finals. That's insane.”

The WNBA’s considerable growth this year has meant spiking attendance, increased viewership, more sponsors and a lucrative new television deal. It also comes with questions: Is the league outgrowing its postseason format? 

“This is the biggest moment of the season, and it’s going to be condensed,” Stewart said. / Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

The current structure was adopted just two years ago. But while the WNBA grapples with right-sizing its ambition for the age of Caitlin Clark, the playoffs feel like another battleground in terms of scheduling, broadcasting and marketing. The 48-hour turnaround between the semifinals and finals this year meant not just a struggle for the coaching staff but also a limited window for media exposure. And that’s just one among several key points here. There have been frustrations with broadcast windows that put every round of the postseason head-to-head with NFL Sundays. The length of these series is relevant, too. Could the WNBA be ready for a best-of-seven Finals? As the league tries to harness the energy of the moment without doing too much, too soon, all of the above feels up for debate.

“It’s really kind of difficult for everyone in this situation,” Stewart said. “This is the biggest moment of the season, and it’s going to be condensed.”

But there are many factors to consider with postseason scheduling. The league is balancing the needs of broadcast partners and the availability of arenas in addition to quality of play. It’s harder still in years like this one that require a midseason break for the Olympics. Even if there are no automatic, straightforward answers, however, the questions themselves have been increasingly common this October.

The WNBA’s current playoff structure has a best-of-three opening round followed by best-of-five semifinals and finals. (The league is only a few years removed from beginning the postseason with a one-game play-in.) But expansion is now on the horizon. The WNBA will begin adding franchises next year for the first time in a decade and a half. The 12-team league will get new outposts in the Bay Area, Toronto and Portland, with more potentially to come. That has come with discussion of extending the regular season from 40 games to at least 44—and of perhaps extending the postseason to match. 

A best-of-seven finals could create a better showcase for the league during its most competitive stretch.

“I think you should pay the girls more if they’re going to work more,” Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon said about the possibility of going to a best-of-seven. “It's a tough schedule anyways, and it's compact, and they’ve got to be tied up on certain things so they're not running into major football and the NBA… They don't pay me enough to solve those problems. But I'm open to seven games.”

Reeve, Williams and the rest of the Lynx clinched their spot in the Finals on Tuesday night, were in New York on Wednesday and will play Game 1 of the Finals on Thursday. / David Butler II-Imagn Images

The question of how to limit direct competition with other major sports is a big one. Every round this year has featured games on Sundays—putting the playoffs directly against the ratings juggernaut of the NFL. That’s not ideal for a league still finding its footing in the broader sports landscape. While the WNBA’s playoff viewership is up significantly year over year—the biggest audiences have been for Clark, as was expected, but viewership is up across the board, too—the lowest rated games in each series have been those played on Sundays. But that scheduling is not solely up to the WNBA. It’s also a question of where the games fit on the broadcast calendar.

That naturally requires an eye toward other leagues. The WNBA’s playoff rights are currently held by ESPN, which airs college football on Saturdays but does not have the rights to pro football on Sundays, making the latter a natural spot to stick other live programming on the network. In other words, Sunday afternoon playoff games are good for ESPN, even if they feel questionably good for the WNBA. (And there are other sports in play here, too: The Lynx’s Game 5 semifinals win on Tuesday was on ESPN2 because the NHL season opener was on ESPN. Earlier semifinals games were on ESPN2 because MLB playoff games were on ESPN.) But this arrangement will change under the recently brokered television deal: Starting in 2026, the playoff rights will then be shared between ESPN, NBC and Amazon Prime. October will be a crowded time of the sports calendar regardless, of course, but spreading out the broadcast rights may at least mean an end to so many crucial playoff games on Sundays.

And there are still other points of contention here. The best-of-three opening round has the first two games hosted by the higher seed. That means the other team has no guarantee of a home playoff game—as was highlighted when Clark and the Indiana Fever were swept by the Connecticut Sun before they could host a game in Indianapolis. But the format isn’t ideal for the higher-ranked team, either, pointed out Sun coach Stephanie White.

If they drop one game, they must then play the clinching game on the road. “We’re always talking about ways that we can improve it,” said White, who suggested a structure where the higher seed would play the first game at home, the second on the road, and a potential third at home. “For us, it’s about putting ourselves as a league in a position to do that.” With the introduction of charter flights this year as the standard for league travel, such a format might finally be possible.

But those big-picture questions can wait for the Liberty and Lynx. First, they have a championship to play for, and it’s starting fast.

“Quick,” Reeve said when asked at the finals on Wednesday how she felt about turning around from the semifinals on Tuesday. “It is what it is, as we all know: TV. We’ve just gotta make the best of it.”

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The matchup

The No. 1 Liberty and No. 2 Lynx have been clearly established as the best teams in the league for months. But their roster construction is strikingly different.

The Liberty were built to win a championship. This was the first true superteam in the WNBA. To complement 2020 No. 1 draft pick Sabrina Ionescu, New York went out last winter and brought in a pair of MVPs (Stewart and Jonquel Jones) and a championship playmaker (Courtney Vandersloot). But that group’s first try for a title came up painfully short with a loss in the 2023 Finals to the Las Vegas Aces. They got revenge this year in the semifinals. Yet that felt more like a warm-up act. “We haven’t done anything yet,” Stewart said after beating Vegas to advance to the Finals. “I’m not satisfied.” It’s championship or bust for this squad. That’s always been the expectation. 

Jones is one of the key figures in the Liberty’s superteam lineup. / Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

The Lynx, meanwhile, were not even considered a lock for the playoffs this year. (Ask Reeve: She will be happy to remind you that ESPN ranked them ninth in the league in a preseason edition of its power rankings.) After back-to-back losing seasons, Minnesota pulled off a modest, piecemeal roster makeover this winter. There were no splashy free agents and no lottery draft picks. But it started building around Napheesa Collier—and hardly anyone else. There are just five players remaining on the roster from last year. “Getting to the Finals is hard, let alone doing it your first year as a group,” said point guard Courtney Williams, who arrived in free agency. “It’s a testament to who we are, how this group came together, Cheryl and the coaching staff putting us all together. These folks are different around here.” The result is arguably the best defense in the league and an offense with spectacular ball movement.  

New York has the best record in the league and boasts impressive depth and size. They’ve rolled through the playoffs so far and have no true weaknesses. Yet the only team able to beat them more than once this year was… Minnesota. The Lynx were 3–1 against the Liberty. (That includes a win in the final of the Commissioner’s Cup tournament back in June.) But that record doesn’t rattle New York. “We’ve been able to peak at the right time in terms of understanding what we need to do to win,” Ionescu said on Wednesday. The Liberty have been playing their most complete basketball of the year in October.

And despite all the differences in the way they came together, these rosters are actually very similar. If styles make fights, there’s not much of one here. Instead, both teams offer excellent spacing, three-point shooting and mobile bigs.

“I think it makes for great TV, the way that we both play,” Reeve said when asked if the complementary styles posed a challenge. “I think the space, I think it’s enjoyable, as we’ve heard a lot… So I don’t necessarily know if there’s challenges, it’s just who can be better at it. That’s the challenge.”

Stewart vs. Collier

They won a championship together at UConn and a gold medal at the Olympics. They’re now business partners, too, as co-founders of new 3-on-3 league Unrivaled. And they’ll likely be guarding each other for much of this series. (Though not exclusively: Both players are skilled enough to pick up coverage all over the floor.) Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are the best players on their respective teams and two of the very best in the league. They were No. 3 and No. 2 in MVP voting this year, respectively, and perhaps the most exciting part of this matchup is just how similar their skillsets are. Both are nominally power forwards. But both are versatile enough to do… just about anything.

“It’s been a real evolution for her to become, now, one of the best power forwards in the league,” Reeve said of Collier. “Shoots the three, goes off the bounce, she posts up, obviously she rebounds, she blocks shots.”  

Stewart’s coach, Sandy Brondello, has said much the same about her. New York has experimented this year with having 6'4" Stewart bring the ball up—including in their clinching semifinal game, where she was tasked with guarding the 1, too. She did it more than capably, of course, and finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and four blocks.

“She’s just high-energy, highly skilled,” Brondello said. “So why not use all those skills?”

While Stewart (30) facing off with Collier will likely be the talk of the Finals, rookie Fiebich (13) could be a difference maker for the Liberty. / Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

X-factors

For New York, watch out for Leonie Fiebich. The rookie was a strong candidate for Sixth Player of the Year—strong enough to play herself into a starting role. At 6'4", with a smooth touch from outside, she’s an asset on both ends of the floor. (She was a whopping +28 in New York’s close-out game against Las Vegas.) And crucially here? Fiebich wasn’t a starter for any of the Liberty’s four games against the Lynx. Her presence in the starting lineup could make a meaningful difference.

For Minnesota, Bridget Carleton. The forward was a contender for Most Improved Player and finished the season averaging 9.6 points and 3.8 rebounds. Her best game of the year was against the Liberty in the Commissioner’s Cup: She had 23 points on 6-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc, plus five assists, four rebounds and three steals. On the flip side, New York’s only win over Minnesota came in a game where they managed to completely shut down Carleton, allowing her to get just one shot off. The Lynx don’t absolutely need Carleton to be hot: They can get by with big performances from some combination of Collier, Williams and three-point menace Kayla McBride. But it certainly helps.

One thing to watch

Can the Lynx manage to shut down Jonquel Jones? The Liberty’s 6' 6" center is a key part of their offense—third in scoring behind Stewart and Ionescu at 14.2 ppg. But she was held scoreless by Minnesota in the Commissioner’s Cup. Up against that lockdown defense, Jones simply couldn’t get any touches in the paint. And the only additional game this year when she had fewer than five points? Another one of Minnesota’s wins over New York. The Liberty will not necessarily need Jones to score in double digits. But they can’t afford to have her shut down as completely as she was earlier this year.