It’s often easy to forget just how relatively young the WNBA is. The playoffs are officially underway to put the final touches on their 28th season which, when said aloud, doesn’t sound particularly new.
Why the WNBA needs to change its playoff format
As the league evolves and grows, the WNBA needs to solve the problems that exist with their current playoff format.
Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Jacob Rude covers Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever as an in-person, credentialed journalist based in Indianapolis for SB Nation, in addition to writing and managing Lakers coverage at Silver Screen and Roll.
However, compare that to other leagues across America and you quickly get a better sense. The NFL’s 28th season was in 1947. Baseball’s history is a little more difficult, but the NL and AL have been playing together since 1903, meaning their 28th season pre-dated World War II.
The NBA, perhaps the most direct comparison to make, had it’s 28th season in 1973-74, a year when blocks and steals became official stats and games were still on tape delay. All that is important context to keep in mind when looking at the WNBA, which is still growing and figuring things out along the way.
The aforementioned start of the postseason will likely bring with it a realization to the WNBA’s rapidly growing audience: the playoff format needs revamping.
Currently, the first round series are all best-of-3. Due to flights not previously being chartered, the first two games of the series take place at the arena of the higher seed. If a Game 3 is necessary, they then travel to the arena of the lower seed for a do-or-die game.
The WNBA has been trying imperfect solutions for years. The current format began in the 2022 season. From 2016 through 2021, a much more convoluted system saw teams receiving byes as late as into the semi-finals along with one-off games in the early stages of the playoffs.
The crux of the issue, though, was that, without chartered flights, travel wasn’t easy. And if the league was committed to a best-of-3 format in round one, then at least one franchise would be at a disadvantage.
This most recent change saw the WNBA reward the higher seed with the chance at a quick sweep, giving the underdogs a huge disadvantage. To that point, since the change in 2022, the higher seed is 8-0. On Sunday, all four higher-seeded teams won their respective Game 1 contests.
At the start of the 2024 season, though, the league finally agreed to charter flights for every team to every game. The decision came so late that changing the postseason format was probably a non-starter, at least for the 2024 playoffs.
But one change should spur another in this instance. With charter flights now common, the playoff formatting needs to be changed.
Before playing the Connecticut Sun on the road on Sunday, Indiana Fever head coach Christie Sides spoke about the topic.
“I think we’re evolving and changing,” Sides said. “I think there’s going to be some changes. The last time I was in this position, it was the one-game elimination. You could beat anybody in this league on a given night. It’s got a lot of luck to do with it. But, yeah, I agree. Now, we have charter flights. We can get back and forth. I’m sure it’s something they’re going to talk about.”
The Fever have, obviously, been one of the stories of the season. Behind Caitlin Clark, they returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2016. More apropos, they broke all sorts of attendance records, averaging 17,035 fans per game while becoming the first franchise to break 300,000 total fan attendance in a season.
And yet, as things stand, it’s unlikely those fans will see a playoff game.
The more common sense take is that the league needs to change it’s playoff format again. The easiest change would be to go to a 1-1-1 format with the higher seed playing Game 1 and Game 3, if necessary, at home. It would allow the lower seed a chance to play in front of it’s home fans in an elimination game, creating incredible atmospheres across the league.
Some of the best playoff moments come with home fans exploding with excitement at a big play or a buzzer beater or game-winner. Right now, that hasn’t existed for half the teams in the WNBA for two years and counting.
The WNBA is growing and evolving and that’s great for its future. But one of the next changes this offseason should include a closer look at its postseason format.
