WNBA Season

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a women’s professional basketball league. It currently is composed of twelve teams — six in the Eastern Conference and six in the Western Conference. The league was founded in 1996 as the women’s counterpart to the National Basketball Association (NBA). WNBA play started in 1997; the regular season is played from May to August, and the playoffs are in September. The regulation WNBA ball is a minimum 28.5 inches in circumference, which is one inch smaller than the NBA ball.

The regular season consists of 34 games, 17 home games and 17 away games. See Sports-at-a-Glance for the season timeline.

WNBA Post-Season (Playoffs and Championship)

The WNBA Playoffs begin in late August, with four teams from the Eastern Conference and four teams from the Western Conference qualifying for the playoffs. Having a higher seed (placement in the playoffs) offers several advantages; the team with the better record has home court advantage.

- In the first round of the WNBA Playoffs, the teams play a best-of-three series. The matchups by seeding are 1st vs. 4th and 2nd vs. 3rd.

- In the second round, the two winning teams from each Conference again play a best-of-five-series.

- The final round, the WNBA Finals, a best-of-five series between the winners from each Conference. For the WNBA Finals, the series follows a 2-2-1 pattern — one team will have home court in games 1, 2, and 5, while the other team plays at home in games 3 and 4.

WNBA All-Star Game

The WNBA All-Star Game is played at midseason in July. The game matches the best players in the Eastern Conference with the best players in the Western Conference. The game is part of a weekend-long event, held in a selected WNBA city each year. During the course of the season, fans vote for the players they would like to see start in the All-Star Game.

WNBA Draft

Every spring, the WNBA Draft is held at league headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey. The draft is currently three rounds long with the 12 teams in the league getting three picks each. The draft order for teams that made the playoffs the previous year is based on team records. The team with the highest previous record will pick last. Since eight teams qualify for playoffs, the last eight picks are determined by this method. The remaining top four picks are selected in a process similar to the NBA Draft Lottery, which is conducted for the four teams that did not qualify for the playoffs.

WNBA Hall of Fame

The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame opened in June 1999 in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is the only facility of its kind dedicated to individuals at all levels of women’s basketball who have made a significant contribution to women’s basketball. The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors serves as the selection committee in determining which individuals are inducted each year. Currently, the Hall of Honor includes 109 inductees. In order to be considered for selection for induction, an individual must meet the following prerequisites:

- Player – Must be retired from the highest level of play for at least five years
- Coach – Must have coached the women’s game for at least 20 years
- Referee – Must have officiated the women’s game for at least 10 years
- Contributor – Must have significantly impacted the game of women’s basketball

WNBA Major Annual Awards

Currently awarded by the WNBA and by designated media organizations:

WNBA Players Association

The Women’s National Basketball Players Association, or WNBPA, is comprised of all WNBA players and is governed by an Executive Committee and Player Representatives from each WNBA team. As the first labor union comprised of professional women athletes, the WNBPA enjoys a unique place in the history of professional sports. The President of the Executive Committee is Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever).

WNBA Commissioner

The current NBA Commissioner, David Stern, also serves as Commissioner of the WNBA; Donna Orender serves as the WNBA President with offices in New York City.

Other Basketball Leagues

The FIBA World Championship for Women (also called the Basketball World Championship for Women) is a world basketball tournament for women’s national teams held every four years. Sixteen national teams compete in the tournament. It is held on the same cycle and in the same year as the men’s FIBA World Championship, but in a different country. Like the men’s event, the Women’s World Championship was created by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA). It began in 1953, three years after the first men’s event. After the 1983 event, FIBA changed the scheduling so that the women’s tournament would be held in even-numbered non-Olympic years, a change that had come to the men’s tournament in 1970.

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