After shuffling the schedule around to avoid playing at a much smaller arena, Game 6 of the WNBA Finals will be held in Atlanta early on Thursday afternoon.
According to ESPN’s Alexa Philippou, the league has managed to put the game at State Farm Arena on Thursday – but with the disadvantage of the potentially decisive match between the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries being held at 12:30pm ET.
This is due to a conflict with the arena’s main tenant, the Atlanta Hawks, who play the Cleveland Cavaliers that same day. The Hawks will now play the Cavs at 8:00pm as part of a double-header.
While not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, the result is a best-case scenario for the league, the Atlanta Hawks and – in a bizarre circumstance – Major League Baseball.
The Dream get to play at State Farm, which has a capacity of 17,624. It’s a much better option than what they were facing, which was playing Game 6 at the vastly smaller, 3,500 seat Gateway Center Arena in College Park.
This scenario also allows the Hawks to play their game against the Cavs, rather than re-schedule the game to another day. If they did that, it would mean the Cavaliers would play back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday.
Game 6 of the WNBA Finals has been moved to 12:30pm on Thursday at State Farm Arena
The Dream and Valkyries play Game 6 earlier before the Hawks and Cavaliers play at 8:00pm
Scheduling Game 6 early avoids a nightmare scenario that would have a ripple effect on multiple franchises across different sports, including a potential Game 7 of the World Series
Doing that would extend the issues beyond the city of Atlanta. If the Hawks had to push their game back to Friday, the Cavs would be disadvantaged before heading up to Milwaukee to play the Bucks on Saturday.
Adding a literal and figurative curveball to this scenario is Game 7 of the World Series. If the Tampa Bay Rays force a final game against the Milwaukee Brewers, that championship contest would be held in Milwaukee on the same day the Bucks play the Cavaliers. In that scenario, it’s likely the Bucks move their game to be earlier in the day to avoid a conflict – which would have been a disaster for Cleveland if they played the Hawks the night before.
Finally, if the WNBA chose to move Game 6 back to Friday, that would create further issues with the Valkyries as the Golden State Warriors have home games on November 1 and 2.
So, if the league pushed Game 6 to Friday, October 30, that means the earliest they could play Game 7 would be on Tuesday, November 3. Not only does that constitute a three-day wait, it’s also the day of the American Midterm elections.
The end result is having a possible championship-clinching game being played in the early afternoon on a work/school day, which already is not going over well in WNBA circles as fans wondered why the Hawks couldn’t have played their game in the middle of the afternoon.
But that’s because the Hawks are set to play a game the night before, against the Miami Heat. Playing that game at 12:30 would give the team less than 12 hours rest before they’d need to be back in the arena for their pre-game routines.
In short: the best result is not a great one, it forces one of the WNBA’s biggest games into a terrible time slot and the only winners seem to be the Atlanta Hawks and, by extension, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Game 5 of the championship series takes place Monday evening in California, with the series tied at 2-2.
