WNBA Finals moving to best-of-seven format in 2025; playoff first round to have 1-1-1 setup

Fans are about to get more of the WNBA Finals.

The league’s Board of Governors approved a best-of-seven format for the finals starting in 2025, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced Thursday. The finals will have a 2-2-1-1-1 structure in which the higher seed will host Games 1, 2, 5 and 7, and its opponent will host Games 3, 4 and 6.

The board also approved a 1-1-1 setup for the best-of-three first round of the playoffs, with the higher seed hosting Games 1 and 3 and its opponent hosting Game 2. It’s a change from the current format, which has the higher seed hosting Games 1 and 2 and its opponent hosting Game 3.

The bracket-style postseason will continue to have three rounds of series play and maintain the best-of-five format in the semifinals.

“We are seeing an incredible demand for WNBA basketball, as reflected in the number of cities pursuing expansion franchises,” Engelbert said in a statement. “Fans attending games and engaging with our social and digital platforms in record fashion, and game broadcasts and streams being consumed like never before.

“These changes will create more opportunities to watch the best players in the world compete at the highest level and give our fans a championship series format that they are accustomed to seeing in other sports.”

Additionally, the regular-season schedule will increase from 40 games to 44 in 2025. Next season will also see the league expand to 13 teams with the inaugural season of the Golden State Valkyries.

Game 1 of the 2024 WNBA Finals between the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty tips off Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.

The fact that the WNBA playoff format is getting revised again is not entirely a surprise. Heading into this year’s postseason, several players and executives around the league voiced a desire to adjust the first-round best-of-three format to guarantee each franchise a home game.

“The league’s gotta do something about this,” former Fever general manager Lin Dunn said before Indiana’s first-round exit to the Connecticut Sun, which saw the franchise not host a game. The 2-1 format was instituted ahead of the 2022 season and was widely viewed as an improvement over the prior format which saw byes to the semifinals for the top two seeds and a single-elimination first-round for the other six. With the implementation of full charter travel in the years since, a 1-1-1 became increasingly possible.

The extended best-of-seven finals seem as if it will also be widely celebrated. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve voiced support about the prospect of the change Thursday.

“There’s doubt,” Reeve said. “We’re gonna get there.”

The longer series could extend the league’s footprint. “We’ll go a little later, probably into October,” Engelbert said of the schedule.

The 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery has an official date. It will occur on Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. ET and be broadcast on ESPN.

The Valkyries, who announced their first coach Thursday, will be selecting fifth in each round of the upcoming WNBA Draft.

Weeks removed from players criticizing Engelbert for what they said was an inadequate public response to the online harassment and abuse they have experienced this season, Engelbert provided a clearer stance Thursday on the subject.

“That type of conduct is not represented with the WNBA’s character or fan base,” she said, adding that the league is “fully committing to listening to the players and other stakeholders on this issue.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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