Hold On, The WNBA Doesn't Have A Time OR Location In Place For Game 6 Of The Fucking Finals??
Kevin C. Cox. Getty Images.This fucking league, man.
Yesterday, we saw the Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals. I'm sure you guys were all glued to your screen watching it like I was. With the win, the Valkyries knotted the series up at two games apiece, which -- for those of you who are good with numbers -- ensures that we'll at least have a Game 6 in this Finals.
The only problem is that the WNBA has no clue when or where that Game 6 will be played yet...
Allow me to give you the SparkNotes here:
Game 5 will be back at the Chase Center in California tomorrow. That's no problem. But when the series returns to Atlanta for Game 6, there's a MASSIVE scheduling conflict.
The Dream typically play their home games at Gateway Center Arena, which only holds 3,500 people. Throughout this playoff run, though, the franchise has upgraded to playing at the Atlanta Hawks' home venue of State Farm Arena. That's roughly 5x the size that they're used to, but it's paid off big time for them and for the WNBA, as a whole. Both games in Atlanta thus far sold out immediately.
However, it's taken some major maneuvering in this series to pull off these games at State Farm. Game 3 had to be moved up an entire day, and Game 4 had to be played in the afternoon yesterday because the Hawks had a home game last night. The Hawks even pushed their tipoff back 30 minutes to accommodate for the doubleheader.
Unfortunately for the Dream, the Hawks have a home game against Cleveland this Thursday night, which is the same day Game 6 of the WNBA Finals is supposed to be. So State Farm Arena is most likely out of the question.
Unless, of course, they were to try another doubleheader, where the Dream would play in the afternoon again. But a weekday matinee for a Finals game is SO much worse than one on the weekend.
There's still the option of playing the game at Gateway Center Arena like they did all regular season, but they'd potentially be missing out on millions of dollars in extra revenue, the fans would be pissed, and it would look relatively shitty on television. The WNBA can't afford that.
There is a proposal to move Game 6 back a day to Friday and then move Game 7 in Cali back to Tuesday, November 3rd, which is Election Day. But the NBA has a policy of not playing games on Election Day, so it's uncertain whether the WNBA would have to abide by those same guidelines.

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As you could imagine, there are some crazies who have suggested that the Hawks should actually be bending their schedule to help out the Dream here. Some have gone as far as to say that the Hawks' Thursday home game against Cleveland should actually be played in…CLEVELAND. Are you fucking serious?
That game is already the second end of a back-to-back for the Hawks, and now you want them to give up a home game just so they can travel to Ohio right after playing on Wednesday night? Give me a break. That's a logistical disaster for the NBA.
I will say this: I'd be fucking furious if I were the Valkyries in this situation. They have everything handled on their end, but now they're just waiting around for Atlanta to get their shit together. Not to mention, they already had to reschedule Game 3 in this series! Now the Valkyries are possibly gonna have to adjust to two more games being moved?? This is the fucking Finals we're talking about here!
We'll see exactly what comes of this mess, but I just simply don't understand how this hasn't been solved by now.