The WNBA Commissioner's Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the WNBA Commissioner's Cup Presented By

Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work and the company lacks a physical headquar ...

, is an in-season competition of the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

that begins at the start of the regular season and continues throughout the first half of the season. The final is played between the top teams from the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. A total of 60 regular-season contests involving all 12 teams count toward the Cup standings. The Commissioner's Cup was originally scheduled to begin in the

2020 WNBA season The 2020 WNBA season was the 24th season of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The Washington Mystics were the defending champions. Planned changes to the league's schedule included an increase from 34 to 36 regular season games f ...

, but due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the Cup was first awarded in the 2021 season. In October 2021, the WNBA announced that

had acquired the

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to the Cup starting with the 2022 tournament.

Format

The Commissioner's Cup consists of regular-season games, 10 games per team, designated to count toward Cup play. The team from each conference with the top record in designated “Cup games” will then compete for the Commissioner's Cup title and a special prize pool. Cup games are the first home game and first road game each team plays against its five conference rivals. The Cup brings back the Eastern–Western Conference rivalry that WNBA used in its playoff tournament until the

2015 WNBA Playoffs The 2015 WNBA Playoffs was the postseason tournament of the WNBA's 2015 season. Format Following the WNBA regular season, four teams in each conference qualified for the playoffs and are seeded one to four based on their regular season record ...

. The first Commissioner's Cup Final game was held at the

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in Phoenix, Arizona.

Prize

The total compensation tops out at $500,000, with the winning team making around $30,000 per player and the game's MVP taking home an additional $5,000. On the losing team's side, players will earn $10,000 each. The winning team would also receive the Commissioner's Cup Trophy.

History

Final appearances

Statistics below refer solely to wins and losses in the final, not to Commissioner's Cup qualifying games.

Cup final records

This table shows a list of records through the history of the Commissioner's Cup final.

References

External links

WNBA.com
{{WNBA Recurring sporting events established in 2020 Women's basketball cup competitions