This article was written by Mark J. Burns and published on Sport & State, a new media company founded by Clay Travis that is built around sports, culture, original voices, and live conversation.* * * * *
If you’re on the east coast, this season’s WNBA champion might be crowned before dinner time on a weekday.
No, we haven’t been hacked — it’s a real possibility.
It appears the WNBA Finals really snuck up on the league office and the Atlanta Dream, which are tied two games apiece against the Golden State Valkyries.
That’s what it feels like in what’s been fire drill after fire drill to determine where and when the franchise will host its postseason games, the latest of which may be one of the most head-scratching decisions in recent memory.
The Dream, which normally play in the 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena, have hosted all five of its playoff games in 2026 at the 17,000-seat State Farm Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks. Ahead of Game 6 on Thursday, the logistical dance continued, with multiple potential solutions being floated as the Hawks also host the Cavaliers that evening.
Alternative possibilities included moving the NBA regular season game to a different date or even to Cleveland, which would have created a whole host of other scheduling issues to solve.
So, here’s the actual solution: the Dream’s game against the Valkyries is being moved to 12:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Arena.
If you’re an Atlanta fan, maybe you can take your 30-minute lunch break at work and catch a quarter, and if you’re a Golden State supporter, you will have barely finished your breakfast before game time.
Let both of those realities sink in.
Naturally, X users pointed to the scheduling absurdity as if to ask, ‘That’s what you came up with?!?!‘
So Valkyries fans will need to be free at 9:30 am on a Thursday to possibly watch their team win a championship?
I’m convinced the WNBA is either run by interns or the owners’ nieces and nephews.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) October 26, 2026
The WNBA’s complete lack of preparation for these schedules issues highlights why leadership needed to be changed.
You got a potential close out game at 1230 pm on a Thursday. One team will be playing a 930am body clock game. Brutal
— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) October 26, 2026
The WNBA is going to crown a champion before the end of business hours on a weekday.
— WBR (@W_B_Rick) October 26, 2026
“This is a terrible look for the WNBA — and there is no way to spin it,” wrote sports media observer Richard Deitsch.
If you’re the WNBA and Dream, you sacrificed TV ratings, overall Finals visibility, and a primetime audience for public optics as well as a few more tickets sold and a couple more buckets of popcorn?
Color me crazy, but the WNBA’s changing of the Commissioner guard couldn’t come at a better time.
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