WNBA season to tip May 14, includes break for Paris Olympics

The WNBA will start its 28th season on May 14 with last season's champions, the Las Vegas Aces, and the runner-up New York Liberty both in action.

The league on Monday released its 40-game schedule for 2024, which includes a more compact format for the Commissioner's Cup as well as a monthlong break for the Summer Olympics from July 18 to Aug. 14.

"We would have made the changes to the Commissioner's Cup even if we didn't have the Olympic break this year," WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. "But it helped making [the Cup] earlier in regard to the the Rubik's Cube that is our schedule.

"We always want to have an All-Star Game now, even in an Olympic year. The condensed two-week period for the Commissioner's Cup will be before All-Star. We've been listening to players and fans."

The 20th WNBA All-Star Game is scheduled for July 20 at Footprint Center in Phoenix. In some past seasons, the league opted not to have an All-Star Game in Olympic years.

The Aces, who won the WNBA title in 2022 and 2023, begin next season at home against the Phoenix Mercury, who missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2012. The Liberty, who won the 2023 Commissioner's Cup trophy, open 2024 on the road at Washington.

Last year's WNBA Finals participants won't meet head-to-head until June 15 in Las Vegas.

After returning from the Olympic break, the final regular-season games will be played Sept. 19.

This is the last season the WNBA expects to play with 12 teams. The San Francisco Bay Area has been awarded an expansion team that begins play in 2025. If no other expansion team is finalized soon, the WNBA is prepared to play with an uneven number of teams, which it has done in the past.

The television schedule for the WNBA will be announced at a later date. Free agency signings begin in February, and the WNBA draft is April 15.