The WNBA Commissioner's Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the WNBA Commissioner's Cup Presented By Coinbase, is an in-season competition of the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. The league comprises 13 teams (scheduled to expand to 15 in 2026). The WNBA is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. The WNBA w ...

(WNBA) 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 13 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 ...

, but due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the Cup was first awarded in the

2021 season 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

. In October 2021, the WNBA announced that

Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's bigge ...

had acquired the

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

to the Cup starting with the 2022 tournament.

Format

The Commissioner's Cup consists of regular-season games 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. Beginning in 2024, Cup games are a series of home or road games against its five conference rivals. From 2021 to 2023, Cup games were the first home game and first road game each team plays against its five conference rivals. The Cup restores the Eastern–Western Conference rivalry that WNBA used in its playoff tournament until the 2015 WNBA Playoffs. The first Commissioner's Cup Final game was held at

Footprint Center The PHX Arena (formerly America West Arena, US Airways Center, Talking Stick Resort Arena, Phoenix Suns Arena and Footprint Center) is a multi-purpose arena in Phoenix, Arizona. It opened under the name America West Arena on June 6, 1992, at ...

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 earn $10,000 each. The winning team also receives the Commissioner's Cup Trophy.

History

Final appearances

Statistics for cumulative annual finals wins and losses, not 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