The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a professional women's basketball league in the United States with 15 teams . The league was founded in 1996 by the men's National Basketball Association (NBA) as a wholly owned subsidiary and began play in the 1997 season with eight teams. WNBA shares the same court dimensions, hoop height, and shot clock length as the NBA, but has had shorter quarters of ten minutes each since 2006 and uses a smaller ball to match with international FIBA standards. Full NBA ownership of the league ended in 2002 and new independent ownership groups began investing in franchises; the WNBA has seven teams with independent ownership and eight that are under the same ownership as an NBA team and share the same home arena.

The league's 15 teams are organized into the Eastern and Western conferences. The number of WNBA teams has varied since the league's original eight in 1997 due to expansions and later contractions; the first expansion teams were added in 1998 and were followed by two more rounds of additions that brought the total to 16 teams in 2000. Following the change in NBA ownership in 2002, the WNBA lost two teams. The league lost two more teams by 2006 but expanded to remain at 13 teams. The number of teams has remained at 12 between the folding of the Houston Comets in 2008 and the debut of the Golden State Valkyries in 2025. Two more expansion teams began play in 2026, including the league's first in Canada, and is set to be followed by three more expansions by 2030 to bring the league to 18 teams.

As of the 30th season in 2026, each team plays 44games during the regular season, which runs from May to September. The regular season includes a month-long break for the Summer Olympic Games and a half-month break for the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup in years with those respective tournaments. A separate break is also included for the annual WNBA All-Star Game in July. The summer schedule is mostly played during the NBA offseason, which allows teams to share venues; during the WNBA offseason, many players transfer to overseas leagues that follow a fall and winter schedule. Some regular season games in June are played against teams in the same conference to determine qualification for the WNBA Commissioner's Cup, an in-season tournament first played in 2021; the final is hosted by the team with the better win–loss record in qualifying games.

The eight teams with the best regular season records, regardless of conference, qualify for the WNBA playoffs to determine the league's champion in the WNBA Finals. , the playoffs have used a best-of-three series in the first round, where teams are seeded based on regular season performance, a best-of-five format for the semifinals, and a best-of-seven format for the WNBA Finals. The most successful playoff teams are the Minnesota Lynx, Seattle Storm, and defunct Houston Comets, who have each won four WNBA championships; the Lynx have made seven appearances in the WNBA Finals, the most in league history. Three current WNBA teams have yet to win a championship; among them, the Connecticut Sun has finished as runners-up in four WNBA Finals.

The best regular season performance in league history was set in the 1998 season by the Houston Comets, who finished with a 27–3 win–loss record—a winning percentage of 0.900. The number of games played by WNBA teams has steadily increased since the initial 28-game schedule in the inaugural season; for most of the league's history, teams played 34 games before the schedule was expanded to 36 games in 2022, 40 games in 2023, and 44 games in 2025. The Las Vegas Aces won 34 games during the expanded 2023 season and set a record for most wins in a WNBA season. The WNBA playoffs has also changed its format several times; until 2016, the two conferences were separated until the WNBA Finals. Under the cross-conference format, top-seeded teams received single or double byes and some rounds had single-elimination games instead of a best-of-five series. The format was simplified in 2022 to remove single-elimination rounds and byes.

Seasons + Season Playoffs Regular season Commissioner's Cup winner Champion Runners-up 1997 8 Houston Comets New York Liberty Houston Comets 28 Not established until 2020 1998 10 Houston Comets (2nd title) Phoenix Mercury Houston Comets 30 1999 12 Houston Comets (3rd title) New York Liberty Houston Comets 32 2000 16 Houston Comets (4th title) New York Liberty Los Angeles Sparks 32 2001 16 Los Angeles Sparks Charlotte Sting Los Angeles Sparks 32 2002 16 Los Angeles Sparks (2nd title) New York Liberty Los Angeles Sparks 32 2003 14 Detroit Shock Los Angeles Sparks Detroit Shock 34 2004 13 Seattle Storm Connecticut Sun Los Angeles Sparks 34 2005 13 Sacramento Monarchs Connecticut Sun Connecticut Sun 34 2006 14 Detroit Shock (2nd title) Sacramento Monarchs Connecticut Sun 34 2007 13 Phoenix Mercury Detroit Shock Detroit Shock 34 2008 14 Detroit Shock (3rd title) San Antonio Silver Stars San Antonio Silver Stars 34 2009 13 Phoenix Mercury (2nd title) Indiana Fever Phoenix Mercury 34 2010 12 Seattle Storm (2nd title) Atlanta Dream Seattle Storm 34 2011 12 Minnesota Lynx Atlanta Dream Minnesota Lynx 34 2012 12 Indiana Fever Minnesota Lynx Minnesota Lynx 34 2013 12 Minnesota Lynx (2nd title) Atlanta Dream Minnesota Lynx 34 2014 12 Phoenix Mercury (3rd title) Chicago Sky Phoenix Mercury 34 2015 12 Minnesota Lynx (3rd title) Indiana Fever New York Liberty 34 2016 12 Los Angeles Sparks (3rd title) Minnesota Lynx Minnesota Lynx 34 2017 12 Minnesota Lynx (4th title) Los Angeles Sparks Minnesota Lynx 34 2018 12 Seattle Storm (3rd title) Washington Mystics Seattle Storm 34 2019 12 Washington Mystics Connecticut Sun Washington Mystics 34 2020 12 Seattle Storm (4th title) Las Vegas Aces Las Vegas Aces  †22 Not held 2021 12 Chicago Sky Phoenix Mercury Connecticut Sun 32 Seattle Storm 2022 12 Las Vegas Aces Connecticut Sun Las Vegas Aces 36 Las Vegas Aces 2023 12 Las Vegas Aces (2nd title) New York Liberty Las Vegas Aces 40 New York Liberty 2024 12 New York Liberty Minnesota Lynx New York Liberty 40 Minnesota Lynx 2025 13 Las Vegas Aces (3rd title) Phoenix Mercury Minnesota Lynx 44 Indiana Fever

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References

External links WNBA website