Oct. 11—The WNBA Finals will expand to a best-of-seven series for the first time in 2025, the league announced Thursday ahead of Game 1 of the 2024 championship series between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx.
The league has never seen a best-of-seven playoff series, but the 2025 final will be the first and will feature a 2-2-1-1-1 format — meaning the higher-ranked seeded teams will host Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 and the lower seeds will host Games 3, 4 and 6.
Among other changes to the emerging league, each team’s regular season games will increase from 40 to 44 games with the introduction of the Golden State Valkyrie.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbart said: “We’re seeing tremendous demand for WNBA basketball, reflected in the number of cities expanding franchises, fans attending games, and creating innovative content on our social and digital platforms. “Now is the time to expand the regular season to 44 games per team and is also the ideal time to expand (the Finals) to a best-of-seven series.
“These changes will create more opportunities to see the world’s best players compete at the highest level and provide our fans with the Championship Series format they are accustomed to seeing in other sports.”
The league also made changes to the best-of-three format in the first round of the playoffs. The higher-seeded team will host Games 1 and 2 but will be the home team for Games 1 and 3, while the lower-seeded team will host Game 2.
“Google’s new 1-1-1 structure for the first round of the WNBA Playoffs will ensure two goals in the series,” said Bethany Donaphin, director of league operations, who is working with WNBA team presidents to ensure all teams have home games.
The league’s rise in popularity, primarily due to Fever star Caitlin Clark, helped secure new media rights deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon worth $2.2 billion over 11 years. Under the new deal, the semifinals and WNBA Finals will alternate between Disney, NBC and Prime Video.
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