WNBA Approves New Playoff Format, Seeding Effective for 2022 Season

The WNBA is adopting a new playoff format for the 2022 season, with single-elimination postseason games now a thing of the past.

The league announced the first round will be best-of-three, while the semifinals and finals will be best-of-five.

This is a significant departure from the old structure, which saw two rounds of single-elimination games before the semifinals.

The old format wasn't without its benefits.

The first two rounds carried plenty of drama since the teams taking part had no margin for error. It also provided lower seeds with more hope of making a Cinderella run to the WNBA Finals.

This year the Chicago Sky finished sixth at 16-16 in the regular season and caught fire in the playoffs en route to their first WNBA championship. In the Finals, they matched up with the fifth-seeded Phoenix Mercury, who also had to escape two single-elimination games.

The previous structure added a lot of importance to regular-season contests as well. A team that finished No. 1 or 2 in the WNBA received a bye to the semifinals, while the No. 3 and 4 seeds at least got to bypass the first round.

But Thursday's announcement comes amid persistent calls for the WNBA to reconfigure its postseason. Seattle Storm star Breanna Stewart was among those advocates, per the Washington Post's Kareem Copeland:

"I think from the players' standpoint we all would like the single elimination to be gone. Just because you work all season for an opportunity, and to have one game just kind of makes it over really quickly. Yeah, it's the format for college, but this isn't college. This is the WNBA. Also, I think extending the playoffs and making series out of all the rounds just makes for more viewers, more eyes to watch us and more people to be a part of it."

This may not be the last time the WNBA tweaks its playoffs.

Under the new version, the lower seed will host a possible Game 3 in the first round, presumably to minimize travel. Still, forcing a higher seed to play a winner-take-all game on the road isn't ideal, and in the event of a sweep, the lower seed won't get to host a single playoff encounter.

Considering the WNBA has already taken this step to dramatically alter the postseason, it stands to reason the league would be willing to make more small alterations over the next few years to address any continued concerns.