Because time machines are not, in fact, real, there was no perfect solution to the WNBA's Game 6 problem. The Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries, tied 2-2 ahead of Game 5 on Monday night at the Chase Center, needed either a schedule change or a location change. And yet, faced with a number of sub-par options, the league delayed the decision until the last possible second, announcing the Game 6 venue just hours before the tipoff of Game 5, and then made the worst choice of the bunch.
Game 6 will be played in State Farm Arena at 12:30 p.m. A game during which the champion of the landmark 30th WNBA season could be crowned will take place during lunch on a workday -- and that's for East Coast fans. Valkyries fans, who have shown their second-year expansion team unprecedented levels of support and devotion, will be watching over breakfast, if their jobs and lives and adult responsibilities will permit them to watch at all.
To add insult to injury, the game has to be early because there will be a regular-season Atlanta Hawks vs. Cleveland Cavaliers game in State Farm that evening -- the game was shifted from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. to help the arena get turned over in time. But that means that, if a champion is crowned in Game 6, the title-winning celebration and media availability will have to be abruptly cut short in order to accommodate the switch to the men's court.
There have even been discussions about moving the on-court celebration to a practice facility, according to ESPN. It is simply a baffling decision made inexcusably late in the game, and while I have no doubt that everyone involved will make the most out of it and that the atmosphere at State Farm on Thursday will be as electric as possible given the circumstances, it is an embarrassing subplot to a season that began with the trailblazing new CBA and is ending with two of the best stories in the league -- Angel Reese's emergence with the Dream and the Valkyries' success as an expansion franchise on and off the court -- duking it out in a thrilling best-of-seven series. But hey, nothing puts an exclamation mark on women's sports history like interrupting a championship-clinching, legacy-defining moment so that the men can play a regular-season game.
How did we even get here? Well, it's a long story that includes centuries of structural inequities and sexism in sports, but I'll try to keep it to the calendar year. The Dream play their home games at the Gateway Center, a 3,500-seat venue that is the smallest in the WNBA.
They began moving marquee games to State Farm Arena, the 17,000-seat home of the Atlanta Hawks, in recent years. This season, thanks in part to the popularity of Reese, who was traded to Atlanta in April, the Dream played five regular-season games in State Farm Arena, and hosted the first two rounds of the playoffs there, too. Next year, State Farm will become the Dream's permanent home.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
