New WNBA playoff format delivers excitement, boosts competitiveness in opening round

The WNBA’s new 1-1-1 playoff format in the best-of-three first round is “delivering the excitement, high stakes and extra basketball the league intended by giving every team at least one home game,” with three of the four series reaching Game 3, according to Cassandra Negley of YAHOO SPORTS. The switch of venues “evens the tables” more than keeping the first two games at the better seed’s house. Previously, Game 3 went to the lower-seeded team’s court, an “issue in its own right.” Negley noted these are not “the days of the top two seeds earning automatic byes to the semifinals.” Instituting charter flights early in the 2024 season allowed the league to switch its format from 2-1 to 1-1-1, a change Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said at her Finals address a year ago that the league had “wanted to make since the COVID-19 pandemic season.” As the league continues to tweak its structure, it “should look at the layout of the playoffs moving forward.” That becomes “especially important” with five more teams entering the league by 2030. Moving back to a conference-based format “might help, though it could lessen the increased competitiveness gained by moving away from it in the 2010s.” Negley wrote the “one thing the league nailed in this was its appreciation of fans” (YAHOO SPORTS, 9/18).

ONLY UP FROM HERE: USA TODAY’s Armour & Hall writes the only complaint with this “fantastic first round is that it isn’t long enough.” The WNBA has “outgrown” the best-of-three format for the quarterfinals. The closely contested games and impressive individual performances are “all the argument you need for the league going to a best-of-five format.” Aces coach Becky Hammon said, referring to the lower seed hosting the first two games in previous year, “You go best-of-five if you’re not going back to the old format. This setup, I prefer a five-game series.” The first round has “been wild, it’s been chaotic, it’s been stressful. Most of all, it’s been a whole lot of fun.” The rest of the WNBA playoffs “has a lot to live up to” (USA TODAY, 9/19).

CHANGING FORMAT: CBSSPORTS.com’s Lindsay Gibbs noted in 2022, when the WNBA switched the first round of the playoffs back to best-of-three series, the league implemented a 2-1 format. The top four seeds advanced to the semifinals all three years. It led to some “very boring first-round series that dulled the excitement of the playoffs” and caused the WNBA to “lose momentum and attention that it captured during the regular season.” It is “unlikely that this format change will lead to a ton of first-round upsets,” but the playoffs “aren’t just about the last team standing; they’re also about the magical moments along the way.” And Tuesday night was “pure magic.” The new format added a “much-needed jolt of excitement to the first round,” and it was not the only playoff format change in the offseason. The WNBA Finals went from being a best-of-five series to a best-of-seven series for the first time in league history. Gibbs: “Let’s hope that in a few weeks we get to experience to full impact of that change, too” (CBSSPORTS.com, 9/17).