WNBA announces changes to regular season and playoff format for 2025 season

There will be some significant changes in the WNBA in 2025, league commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced Thursday.

Starting next year, the league plans to adopt a best-of-seven format for the WNBA Finals, similar to the NBA's, departing from the current best-of-five format.

Additionally, in the first round of the postseason, teams will alternate home advantage during the best-of-three series, creating a 1-1-1 format in terms of home and away games. In the current format (2:1), the higher seed hosted the first two games of the series. The lower-seeded player only gained home-field advantage if the series lasted three games, which was not the case in any of this year's first-round duels.

There are also changes to the length of the regular season. Starting in 2025, the WNBA will expand its regular season schedule so that each team will play 44 games, up from 40 games in 2024.

The league continues to grow after a record-breaking 2024 season, thanks to the emergence of popular new stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. A 13th franchise, the Golden State Valkyries, is also joining the WNBA in 2025, and even more new teams are expected to debut in 2026.