2024 WNBA Season to Begin on May 14; Schedule to Include Break for Paris Olympics

The WNBA announced Monday that the 2024 season will begin on May 14 with last season's runners-up, the New York Liberty, visiting the Washington Mystics.

The three remaining games on opening day will including the defending champion Las Vegas Aces hosting the Phoenix Mercury, the Indiana Fever visiting the Connecticut Sun and the Seattle Storm hosting the Minnesota Lynx.

The regular season, which will feature 40 games per team again this year, will include a break between July 21 and Aug. 14 for the Paris Olympics.

The league will also hold the Commissioner's Cup between June 1-13, with each team playing their five conference foes once. Those games will count toward the regular season as well, and the two teams from each conference with the best record in those five games will face off for a $500,000 prize pool.

The full schedule for the Commissioner's Cup is available at WNBA.com.

The previous format had teams play 10 total games, which were the first home and road games teams played against their conference rivals.

This year's All-Star Game, meanwhile, will be played on Saturday, July 20. And the final day of the regular season will be Thursday, Sept. 19.

"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 told ESPN's Michael Voepel. "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," she added. "The condensed two-week period for the Commissioner's Cup will be before All-Star. We've been listening to players and fans."

This will be the final season the league plays with 12 teams, with Voepel reporting the Bay Area has been awarded an expansion team that will commence playing in 2025, and it's possible the league will go with an uneven number of teams unless another expansion team is formed.

As for offseason dates of note ahead of the 2024 campaign, free agent will begin on Feb. 1 and the WNBA draft will be held on April 15.