The NBA wants the WNBA to grow. This Finals scheduling blunder won’t help

There are plenty of good things that happen in the afternoon. Lunch, for instance. Or even a power nap. And who among us doesn’t enjoy having that second cup of coffee to power us through our midday malaise as we plot our pending escape into rush-hour traffic? The afternoons are great for small pleasures but not at all suitable for a potentially deciding championship game in a billion-dollar sports league. The WNBA’s Game 6 in Atlanta, which will tip off at 12:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, isn’t some quirky matinee on the sports calendar. It’s a missed opportunity … for the NBA. This isn’t to absolve the WNBA brain trust and commissioner Cathy Engelbert of this scheduling snafu that puts the league on par with the American Cornhole League Pro Singles Finals (first throw at noon). This massive blunder — and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to resolve it — was a group effort. Yay, teamwork. However, most of the power and oversight in this group belong to the NBA. It’s the NBA’s owners, who control 42 percent of the WNBA, that are testing the limits of the W’s rapid growth and not understanding how a 12:30 p.m. tip reverts the league to the dark ages. It’s commissioner Adam Silver, who has previously gotten involved in the league’s business dealings because he cares about the bottom line, not forcibly taking the reins by rescheduling an NBA regular-season game to a later date so that a WNBA championship matchup could net a wider TV audience. The folks at the NBA have got to be frustrated, right? Like, how many times do they have to hold the W’s hand to guide its sustainability? But when the NBA has a stake in the league, which has gone from tax write-off to golden goose status, then it should do more to promote its product. Now’s not the time to make the WNBA fight for an audience’s attention on a lazy afternoon. It’s the time to fight harder for the WNBA. Because the bottom line is this: The WNBA is worth $5.5 billion. That means the women’s game is an investment worth protecting. That’s it. Periodt. This isn’t about performative equality, or showing the world how much NBA stakeholders value women’s sports (though coming up with a matinee tip-off for the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries whispers an uncomfortable truth that they’re okay with not showcasing this low-scoring series). Nor is this about pinning sole responsibility on the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks to clean up a problem the W and the Dream could have and should have seen coming. Go all the way back to late September. It was then, after the completion of the first round of the playoffs, that the WNBA knew Games 3, 4 and 6 of the finals would be held in either Brooklyn or Atlanta. The New York Liberty and the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets have the same owners and share the same arena, so no big deal. The Tsai family would’ve made it work, just as they did two years ago when the Liberty hosted finals games. However, the Dream, who are owned by a three-person group, are not affiliated with the Hawks. Although this postseason, the Dream has played sold-out games inside the Hawks’ State Farm Arena and next year, the downtown Atlanta arena will be their home, they do not own the building. If Atlanta advanced to this year’s finals, the league would have had a logistics nightmare, with its showcase games taking place inside the Dream’s 3,500-seat capacity home gym — unless the WNBA could get the Hawks to offer their already booked-up stadium. Spoiler alert: That nightmare happened. And it shouldn’t have happened twice. So, this time around, perhaps Atlanta’s NBA franchise figured it had buckled enough in this game of chicken. The Hawks already acquiesced to the Dream once, when the team pushed back its home season opener to a later start time so that State Farm Arena could host Game 4 of the WNBA Finals on Oct. 24. Knowing this, the WNBA should’ve had a better contingency plan ahead of a potential Game 6 — something a bit more solid than praying for the series to end in five. This isn’t about shaming the Hawks for not being benevolent enough. Neither the WNBA nor any fan of the league should be asking for charity. As if the Hawks should be gentlemen and hold open doors for the dainty, little Dream. Please. That’s demeaning. This is simply about the NBA, the entity that maintains executive stewardship over the WNBA, stepping up and managing its asset. Marketing the mess out of it. Owning October (outside of Saturdays and Sundays) as the premier sports event. Squeezing all the primetime juice it can. Viewing the WNBA as it should be — a moneymaker. Any $5.5 billion sports investment deserves a platform fitting of its promise. It’s risky to play hypothetical “what if” games, but let’s be real here: If Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever had advanced this far and the WNBA Finals pre-set schedule conflicted with a Pacers’ home game, then Tyrese Haliburton and his buddies would have had to step aside. True, that would’ve been an easier sell, considering the synergy between the franchises owned by the same corporation, Pacers Sports & Entertainment. Still, I suspect that even if the WNBA had determined its Finals schedule back in December 2025, a game featuring Clark would bump any primetime NBA matchup. And let’s not pretend that postponing NBA regular-season games is some impossible task. During the COVID-19 comeback season in 2021, the NBA became adept at rescheduling games when the virus ravaged entire rosters. Not only that, last season the Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies had to punt their Jan. 25 matchup to March due to a winter storm. The Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls also postponed their Jan. 8 tilt to later that month because of court condensation at the United Center. These postponements followed extreme circumstances — a global pandemic, Mother Nature, dangerous floor conditions. Each time, the NBA found openings in the calendar at later times. Certainly, the WNBA Finals scheduling does not rise to the level of affecting players’ health and safety. It is still, however, the W’s biggest moment of the season, which qualifies as an exceptional condition. What other big-time sports league has to compete with your lunch run — that Thai place down the street or last night’s leftovers? — when it wants you to witness the potential coronation of its champion? The Hawks’ owners didn’t have to push back Thursday’s home game and inconvenience their players and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Still, it’s fair to wonder why the NBA couldn’t step in and offer a later date in the 2026-27 calendar to play this meaningless regular-season game? If the NBA does see the WNBA as a marketable product — the first three finals games have drawn strong ratings even without Clark’s presence — then why not move heaven and earth to secure a better broadcast window for Game 6? That’s a question worth pondering only if the NBA wants the W’s growth plan to be something more nuanced than putting Caitlin Clark on the floor and reaping ad revenue. It’s hard to imagine Silver, who previously ran the NBA Entertainment division before rising to commissioner, thinking a Thursday afternoon time slot would be the most ideal entertainment setting for a Finals game. It’s not, and would never be, for any respectable sports league. Many hands worked together to unravel this mess. Even so, the NBA, with its hands all over the WNBA’s growth, needed to push for something better. They must be out to lunch if they think a midday compromise advances the WNBA. This article originally appeared in The Athletic . Atlanta Dream, Golden State Valkyries, WNBA, Opinion 2026 The Athletic Media Company