Women's National Basketball Association
Professional women's basketball league in the United States / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league.
Current season, competition or edition: 2023 WNBA Playoffs | |
| |
| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | April 22, 1996; 27 years ago (1996-04-22) |
| Founder | David Stern |
| Inaugural season | 1997 |
| Commissioner | Cathy Engelbert |
| Motto | Watch Me Work |
| No. of teams | 12 |
| Country | United States |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Most recent champion(s) | Las Vegas Aces (1st title) |
| Most titles | Houston Comets Minnesota Lynx Seattle Storm (4 titles each) |
| TV partner(s) |
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| Official website | WNBA.com |
It is composed of 12 teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association (NBA), and league play started in 1997. The regular season is played from May to September, with the All Star game being played midway through the season in July (except in Olympic years) and the WNBA Finals at the end of September until the beginning of October.
Five WNBA teams have direct NBA counterparts and normally play in the same arena: Indiana Fever, Los Angeles Sparks, Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, and Phoenix Mercury. The Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces, Seattle Storm, and Washington Mystics do not share an arena with a direct NBA counterpart, although four of the seven (the Dream, the Sky, the Wings, and the Mystics) share a market with an NBA counterpart, two (Mystics and Dream) play in NBA G League arenas, while the Storm shared an arena and market with an NBA team, the SuperSonics, at the time of its founding. The Dream, Sky, Sun, Wings, Aces, Sparks, and Storm are all independently owned. The Aces are owned by Mark Davis, who also owns the Las Vegas Raiders of the NFL.