It’s an in-season competition where the players have a big prize in mind and the fans are more involved in the first half of the season.
The WNBA kicks off its first Commissioner’s Cup on the first day of the 25th anniversary season. While it may feel new to viewers in the US, it is a common format in European sports leagues.
Some of the games in the first half of the season are referred to as the Commissioner’s Cup game and count towards the cup standings. During the Olympic break, the top teams of the Eastern and Western Conference play against each other in a final of the cup championship.
“I think it’s going to be pretty normal for the players,” Seattle Storm point guard Sue Bird told Yahoo Sports. “We’re used to playing in that system. And hopefully it’ll just create excitement for the fans. You know, everyone loves to watch games that mean something. So this isn’t just a little bit of off-season bragging me mean, there is no more telling place. “
Yahoo Sports has the exclusive details on how the tournament will work, the prize money, and the rivalries that will fuel the trophy for years to come.
Reigning MVP A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces will play two Commissioner’s Cup games against the Seattle Storm in a WNBA Finals rematch on May 15 and June 27. (Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
WNBA Commissioner’s Cup: How It Works
Each team has 10 in-conference games in the first half of their schedule, which are designated as Commissioner’s Cup games. They are the first home game and the first street game that each team plays against its five conference opponents. The team with the highest winning percentage of these 10 games in the Eastern Conference plays the winner of the Western Conference in a championship game.
With so few games there is a list of tiebreakers when teams are tied. The first is head to head followed by a point spread differential.
The total of 60 games will be played between the start of the season on May 14th and the last matchday before the Olympic break on July 11th. The championship game will take place in Phoenix on August 12, days before the second half of the league game resumes.
The story goes on
“To see this as the first game after the Olympic break, you know it will only carry over to the second half of the season and the playoffs,” Diamond DeShields, Chicago Sky Guard, told Yahoo Sports.
Amazon Prime Video, a new media partner with 16 games per season, will broadcast nine cup games and have the championship game.
“The WNBA is one of the leading professional sports leagues in the world, inspiring millions of young and emerging athletes everywhere,” said Marie Donoghue, vice president of Global Sports Video at Amazon. “I’m very excited that we are bringing these great athletes and games to Prime Video.”
The prize pool is $ 500,000 and the winning team takes home a custom trophy that is passed on from champion to champion each season. There are boastful rights too, especially in the opening season.
“When you have money and boastful rights on the line, I think the players will be ready and ready to play,” Renee Montgomery, co-owner and former Atlanta Dream player, told Yahoo Sports.
Why host a Commissioner’s Cup?
The idea came from collective bargaining in 2019 and should be launched in the following 2020 season until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One of the things we promised in the collective bargaining was to increase player compensation through special competitions,” Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told Yahoo Sports. “So the Commissioner’s Cup is a reflection of that promise we made and the idea of creating a special tournament for the season actually came from the players themselves.”
The $ 500,000 prize is significant. Most of the league’s players have rookie-scale contracts and earn between $ 58,710 and $ 70,040. Players on winning teams would earn at least $ 30,000, more than half the choices that Napheesa Collier (2019) and Crystal Dangerfield (2020) make for Minnesota Lynx Rookie of the Year in one season. Runner-up team members can earn $ 10,000 per player, and the game’s MVP will receive an additional $ 5,000.
It also means more sponsorship opportunities, league visibility and coverage. In the first half of the season, more meaningful matchups are offered for each team before the playoff push intensifies competition on the track.
“It’s also motivating to win another championship as a competitor,” 2019 Washington Mystics forward and MVP Elena Delle Donne told Yahoo Sports.
The WNBA moved away from the conference ranking for the playoffs and rose to the overall league of the eight best teams. The in-conference games and rivalries will now have a more exciting flair.
Rivalries are at the heart of the Commissioner’s Cup
Some of the most anticipated matchups are cup games this season. The New York Liberty, in which Sabrina Ionescu returns to the field after an ankle injury, will play one of four cup games against the Indiana Fever on the opening night.
The WNBA final on Saturday against the Seattle Storm and Las Vegas Aces also stands for the cup classification, as does Candace Parker’s Chicago Sky debut.
The oversized rivalries include:
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Sparks vs. Lynx (historic rivalry): June 12th, July 11th
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Aces versus Storm (WNBA Final Rematch): May 15, June 27
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Mercury versus Storm (Diana Taurasi versus Sue Bird): July 9th, 11th
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Sky vs. Mystics (Candace Parker vs. Tina Charles and Elena Delle Donne): May 15, July 10
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Liberty vs. Mystics (Tina Charles vs. her previous team): May 21, July 3
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Focus on social justice at the Commissioner’s Cup
The cup games will focus on a theme of equality and racial justice, with each team activating this in their own way in their home markets. It was important for Engelbert and the players to continue the work they did in the 2020 season and continue with the Social Justice Council launched last year.
Washington Mystics’ Natasha Cloud and Washington Wizards players led a Black Lives Matter march through the streets of DC to the MLK Memorial on June 19, 2020 (mpi34 / MediaPunch / IPX).
“This is who we are as a league. This is what we represent,” Sue Bird, four-time WNBA champion and vice president of the WNBA Players Association, told Yahoo Sports. “You know, this is our focus and has been for a long time. Last year was kind of the high point of everything. But it’s something that we – we always have – only in our blood. It’s I’ve been in for a very long time our DNA. And so this is just another part of it, another way to keep conversations going and get the job done. It’s really just a vehicle. All of these little things are just vehicles for us to get our message across. “
The council spent the off-season working on health equality in color communities, as demonstrated in a COVID-19 PSA released last month. She has also continued her work in the area of civic engagement and voting rights.
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