Professional Women's Basketball · Est. 1996 · New York, NY · 13 Teams
Women's National Basketball Association
Season Calendar
The WNBA regular season tips off in mid-May and runs through mid-September, with each team playing a 44-game schedule—a compact campaign that eliminates filler and charges every game with playoff intensity from the opening night. The season is structured around a single table rather than separate conference schedules, meaning every matchup counts equally toward postseason positioning.
The league takes a mid-season break in July during the Olympic or FIBA qualifying windows, allowing its international stars to represent their national teams. The WNBA Playoffs begin in late September and the Finals conclude in October, giving the league a five-month window that avoids direct competition with the NBA’s regular season while commanding its own growing share of the sports calendar.
Team Format
Each WNBA roster carries twelve players, with a game-day active roster of eleven. The league operates under a salary cap system that has been significantly restructured in recent collective bargaining agreements, with the 2020 CBA introducing supermax contracts, improved free agency rules, and enhanced marketing and sponsorship opportunities for players. Teams build their rosters through the WNBA Draft, free agency, and trades, with a hard salary cap ensuring competitive balance across the league.
The draft, held annually in April, is a two-round event that has become a cultural spectacle in its own right—the 2024 draft drew record television audiences as Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, and Angel Reese headlined a transformative class. Each team may also carry up to two players on suspended contracts, typically those competing overseas during the WNBA offseason.
Game Format
A WNBA game is played with five players per side on a 94-by-50-foot court, with the ball going through a basket mounted ten feet above the floor. Games consist of four 10-minute quarters—two minutes shorter per quarter than the NBA—creating a faster-paced, more concentrated product. The three-point line is set at 22 feet, 1.75 inches, matching the NBA distance since the 2025 season.
A 30-second shot clock governs each possession, six seconds longer than the NBA’s 24-second clock, reflecting the league’s emphasis on half-court execution and set plays. Players advance the ball by dribbling or passing, and the team on offense must cross half-court within ten seconds. Overtime periods of five minutes resolve tied games, with as many overtimes as necessary to determine a winner.
Key Rules
Personal fouls accumulate throughout the game, and a player fouls out after committing six—one more than the NBA’s five-foul limit, reflecting the shorter game length. Team fouls trigger bonus free throw situations: after the fourth team foul in a quarter, the opposing team shoots two free throws on each subsequent foul. Technical fouls result in one free throw and possession for the opposing team, and flagrant fouls carry escalating penalties from free throws to ejection.
The WNBA uses a coach’s challenge system, allowing each team one challenge per game to contest certain referee calls via video review. The league also employs a replay center for reviewing close calls in the final two minutes of regulation and all of overtime, ensuring that critical late-game decisions are adjudicated as accurately as possible.
Playoff Format
The top eight teams qualify for the WNBA Playoffs regardless of conference affiliation, seeded one through eight by regular-season record. The postseason is played entirely in best-of-five series—first round, semifinals, and Finals—a format that rewards depth, consistency, and the ability to make adjustments across multiple games. Home-court advantage goes to the higher-seeded team, which hosts Games 1, 2, and 5.
The best-of-five format throughout the bracket replaced the previous mixed format (which used single-elimination early rounds) starting in 2022, giving the playoffs a weightiness and narrative arc that the old structure lacked. The WNBA Finals, typically held in October, have produced some of the most dramatic moments in women’s sports history, and the trophy presentation has become a marquee moment on the national sports calendar.