The WNBA Is On the Clock to Solve Another Frustrating Finals Dilemma

Angel Reese and the Dream really don’t need any distractions right now as they look to clinch the franchise’s first-ever championship. Unfortunately, they just got one.

The Valkyries’ 67–62 win over Atlanta on Saturday afternoon tied the series, 2–2, and ensured that, for the first time in WNBA Finals history, there will be a Game 6. The looming question as of this moment is: Where will that game be played?

Game 5 is set to take place Monday night at Chase Center, affectionately known to Golden State fans as “Ballhalla.” The series returns to Atlanta for Game 6 next Thursday (Oct. 29), but since the Hawks have a home game that night, the tilt is currently slated to be played at Gateway Center Arena, the Dream’s season-long home and the smallest arena in the WNBA.

Thus far, the Dream have played all of their playoff games at State Farm Arena, the Hawks’ NBA home which holds 17,044 fans. Atlanta’s two Finals home games, Games 3 and 4, previously faced scheduling conflicts at the venue that were ultimately ironed out thanks to the cooperation of the Valkyries, Hawks, the NBA and both leagues’ broadcast partners. As one can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts to relocating games, and Atlanta got the job done with plenty of help all around.

Looking ahead, though, the franchise appears to face a taller task to relocate Game 6 on relatively short notice. Next Thursday, the Hawks will host the Cavaliers at State Farm Arena at 7 p.m. The last time the Dream’s and Hawks’ schedules clashed, Atlanta’s Game 4 got moved from Saturday night to Saturday afternoon to set up a WNBA-NBA double-header. Since Game 6 is scheduled for Thursday, it seems unlikely that Atlanta would want to move that contest to the daytime.

Where will WNBA Finals Game 6 be played? What the league should do about its latest scheduling conflict

Earlier this week, Steve Koonin, the CEO of the Hawks and State Farm Arena, delivered a telling update about the venue’s upcoming scheduling conflict. Koonin told Mike Conti of 92.9 The Game that State Farm Arena has made multiple dates available for a WNBA Finals Game 6, but that rescheduling that game is solely a league decision.

Koonin also encouraged Dream fans to “write your congressman” to urge a schedule change.

“You can’t go move a Cleveland game without affecting 10 other games. It’s dominoes," Koonin said of the Hawks’ home matchup against the Cavs. “I’m hopeful, but we’re having lots of discussions and telling the league what’s going on in Atlanta. The Dream are top of mind, people are excited—they blew the roof off. I hope the Dream are inside [State Farm Arena], and if not, we’re going to fight like hell for them to be in our building. We’ve made dates available to the league.”

There appears to be little to no chance of the Hawks moving their NBA game, per Koonin. Instead, the onus seems to fall on the WNBA to change the date of Game 6, or else have the Dream play the game at the much-smaller Gateway Center Arena in College Park.

So, what options does the league have to get itself out of another scheduling fiasco?

The Hawks’ home games on Oct. 28 and 29 may not be moveable. There are no events at State Farm Arena on Oct. 27 or 30, but moving Game 6 to either one of those dates would create undesirable back-to-backs with Game 5 and an if-needed Game 7 (Oct. 31). The simplest fix could be to move both Game 6 and Game 7, the latter of which is currently scheduled to fall on Halloween and may not have drawn the biggest crowd, anyway.

If the Dream and the WNBA can find a way to move Game 6 to Friday (Oct. 30) and then play a potential Game 7 that following Sunday (Nov. 1), everyone could come out of this pesky predicament as a winner. That does, of course, require the cooperation of the Valkyries, the league’s broadcasting partners and anyone else involved, but it might be the most straightforward solution all things considered.

As a reminder, this year’s WNBA Finals have regularly set viewership records with Game 3 averaging 1.71 million viewers, good for the third-most watched WNBA Finals game ever on cable according to Sports Media Watch. For a bit of perspective, Atlanta’s last WNBA Finals Game 3 back in 2013, when the Dream got swept by the Lynx, averaged just 321,000 viewers.

It’s worth noting that Game 3 was the first game in the WNBA Finals that didn’t compete with football; Game 1 aired during a usual jam-packed college football slate on Saturday, and Game 2 aired during the NFL’s Monday Night Football.

If the WNBA is serious about the continued growth and exposure of women’s basketball, the league will pull as many strings as it can to make sure the Dream get their arena of choice in what promises to be an all-time great Finals series.