September 9, 2020
WNBA playoffs to air on ESPN networks
Every game of the WNBA playoffs will be available across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and the ESPN App, the sports network announced Tuesday.
Welcome to The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited, and photographed by our young, diverse staff, dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives, and projections about the game we love.
Continue reading with a subscription to The Next
Get unlimited access to women’s basketball coverage and help support our hardworking staff of writers, editors, and photographers by subscribing today.
Already a member?
Login
Subscribe to make sure this vital work, creating a pipeline of young, diverse media professionals to write, edit and photograph the great game, continues, and grows. Subscriptions include some exclusive content, but the reason for subscriptions is a simple one: making sure our writers and editors creating 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage get paid to do it.
Members of the Seattle Storm look on during a game against the Los Angeles Sparks on Sept. 4, 2020. (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)
Every game of the 2020 WNBA postseason will be available across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and the ESPN App, the sports network announced Tuesday. The 2020 regular season, which was ESPN’s most extensive regular-season schedule to date, ends on Sunday, Sept. 13. The playoffs are scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Sept. 15 with two first-round single-elimination games shown on ESPN2.
Though this year saw a shortened, 22-game regular season played entirely at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, the playoffs format remains the same.
The top eight seeds — regardless of the conference — advance to the playoffs, with the top two teams receiving a double-bye to the semifinal round. The first two round of the playoffs are single-elimination games: the first round matches up the No. 5 seed vs. the No. 8 seed and the No. 6 seed vs. the No. 7 seed. In the second round, the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds host the winners of each first-round game in another single-elimination game. After that, the semifinals and finals are both a best-of-five-games series.
Here are the current league standings:
-
Seattle Storm (16-3) – clinched playoffs
-
Las Vegas Aces (14-4) – clinched playoffs
-
Los Angeles Sparks (14-5) – clinched playoffs
-
Minnesota Lynx (13-6) – clinched playoffs
-
Phoenix Mercury (12-8) – clinched playoffs
-
Chicago Sky (11-9) – clinched playoffs
-
Connecticut Sun (10-10) – clinched playoffs
-
Dallas Wings (7-12) – have not yet clinched playoffs. The Washington Mystics, Indiana Fever, and Atlanta Dream are technically still in the running for the eighth seed.
The full T.V. schedule of the playoffs is as follows:
