WNBA Announces Historic Playoff Format Change for 2025 Season

Ahead of Thursday night’s 2024 WNBA Finals, which featured the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx in Game 1, commissioner Cathy Engelbert made significant announcements regarding the postseason structure of the league, which will take effect starting in 2025.

Most significantly, starting with the upcoming season, the Finals will feature a 2-2-1-1-1 format and be a best-of-seven series. “This will give our fans a championship series format that they are accustomed to seeing in other sports,” Engelbert stated.

Additionally, the first round of best-of-three matches will be changed from a controversial 2-1 format to a 1-1-1 format, ensuring that every team that makes the playoffs will host at least one game and avoiding a scenario in which a lower-ranked team gets a win-or-lose third home game.

“We have contemplated both these changes since the pandemic, and we would have done it in the current year, but with the Olympic break this year it wasn`t possible,” Engelbert added. “Now that we have charter [flights] throughout the season and playoffs, it’s feasible.”

Additionally, Engelbert confirmed that the league will indeed increase the regular season to a record 44 games, something she first discussed during All-Star Weekend in July.

“The league`s growth and increased demand for WNBA basketball wil make 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,” Engelbert said.

The WNBA has changed its playoff format fairly regularly in the past, and this is the latest adjustment.

There were only two playoff rounds in the league’s inaugural 1997 season, and the semifinals and finals were one-game competitions. In 1998, the semifinals and finals adopted a best-of-three format; in 2005, a best-of-five format was initially implemented. But that was only for the Finals at first, and it wasn’t until 2016 that the semifinals were made into best-of-five competitions.