The biggest news in the WNBA on Thursday was undoubtedly the Minnesota Lynx defeating the New York Liberty in Game 1 of the Finals by overcoming an 18-point deficit. That makes the Lynx two wins away from hoisting their record-breaking fifth WNBA championship.
However, if this series was taking place a year from now, then Minnesota would need another three victories to claim the WNBA Finals. That’s because the second-biggest news item from Thursday was the league announcing that the Finals will be a best-of-seven series, starting in 2025.
The league has used a best-of-five format for the championship series since 2005, and prior to that, the WNBA Finals was a best-of-three format from 1998–2004. In the league’s inaugural season of 1997, a one-game winner-take-all event crowned the league’s first champion.
“Starting next year with the 2025 WNBA season, the WNBA Finals, presented by YouTube TV, will be a best-of-seven format, replacing the current best-of-five format,” Engelbert said. She also noted that the first round will remain a best-of-three, with the semifinals round being a best-of-five.
The structure of the 2025 WNBA Finals, and beyond, will be 2–2–1–1–1 hosting structure, which is currently deployed in the NBA playoffs. The better seed will host Games 1, 2, 5, and 7, with the worse seed hosting Games 3, 4, and 6.
The league’s move to having all of their flights chartered played a part in the hosting structure changing as it’s now easier to accommodate teams with multiple flights in a single series.
“This will give our fans a championship series format that they are accustomed to seeing in other sports,” Engelbert continued, while also noting that the first-round structure will also be modified.
This season, it was a 2–1 structure in which the better seed hosted the first two games, before the worse seed hosting a potential Game 3. Starting next year, it will go to a 1–1–1 arrangement.
Playoff changes aren’t the only ones that were announced on Thursday, as not only will the postseason be lengthened but the regular season as well.
The 2025 WNBA regular season will have 44 games for each team, an increase from 40 games per team this year.
The league’s players are certainly used to varying regular season lengths, as it was 34 games as recently as 2019, 22 games during the pandemic-affected 2020 season, 32 games in 2021, 36 games in 2022, and 40 games each of the past two seasons.
“The league’s growth and increased demand for WNBA basketball made this the ideal time to expand the schedule, lengthen the Finals, and provide fans more opportunities to see the best players in the world compete at the highest level,” stated Engelbert.
There’s another factor which makes 2025 the ideal time to lengthen both the WNBA regular season and postseason.
As a league that runs a summer schedule, the WNBA often has to plan around international tournaments such as the Olympics or the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in even-numbered years. Neither will take place in 2025, so this is the opportune time to implement the changes.
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris occurred at the same time as the WNBA regular season and forced the league to take a month-long break from July 17 to Aug. 15. The league usually starts its seasons in mid-May, with the postseason concluding in mid-October, but these upcoming changes—without a condensing of off-days in the regular season—means the league will conflict a bit more with the NBA’s season.
Starting the season earlier in May means it will occur at the same time as the first and second round of the NBA playoffs, while ending it later in October could conflict with the start of the NBA season, as the 2024–25 regular season tips off on Oct. 22—two days after a potential Game 5 of the WNBA Finals.
The WNBA schedule changes occur as the league welcomes its 13th franchise as the Golden State Valkyries to begin play next season, with expansion teams in Toronto and Portland then joining the league in 2026. The Valkyries have a team but currently no players, which will be addressed with the WNBA Expansion Draft that Engelbert announced will take place on Nov. 17.
Golden State will get to “draft” players from other teams that are under contract but not on the list of protected players that each team submits to the league. The last WNBA expansion draft took place in 2008 when the Atlanta Dream joined the league, and they took 13 players—one from each of the other 13 teams.
After that, the Valkyries will take part in the annual standard draft in the spring. They’ve been slotted into the No. 5 spot, where they will pick in each of the three rounds. That puts them behind the four teams that missed the playoffs—with the draft lottery to determine where they will slot 1 through 4—but the Valkyries are ahead of the eight teams that made the 2024 WNBA postseason.
