Women's National Basketball Association Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids
Women's National Basketball Association

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)	Washington Mystics (1st title)
Most titles	Houston Comets Minnesota Lynx (4 titles each)
TV partner(s)	United States: ESPN/ABC CBSSN/CBS NBA TV Twitter Facebook Canada: NBA TV Canada TSN/TSN2 SN1/SN360

The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a professional basketball league in the United States. It is currently composed of twelve teams. 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. Starting in 2020, a midseason tournament, the Commissioner's Cup, will be added. Initially, regular-season Cup games were to be played through early July, followed by a final match in August; however, this schedule is subject to change due to disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Five WNBA teams have direct NBA counterparts and 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, and the Storm shared an arena and market with an NBA team at the time of its founding. The Dream, the Sky, the Sun, the Wings, the Aces, the Sparks, and the Storm are all independently owned.

Teams

Liberty

Sun

Sky

Rockers (folded)

Shock

Fever

Dream

Sting (folded)

Sol (folded)

Miracle

Mystics

Shock

Wings

Comets (folded)

Stars

Lynx

Fire (folded)

Storm

Starzz

Monarchs (folded)

Mercury

Sparks

Aces

The WNBA originated with 8 teams in 1997, and through a sequence of expansions, contractions, and relocations currently consist of 12 teams. There have been a total of 18 franchises in WNBA history.

As of the league's most recent 2019 season, the Las Vegas Aces (formerly the Utah Starzz and San Antonio (Silver) Stars), Los Angeles Sparks, New York Liberty, and Phoenix Mercury are the only remaining franchises that were founded in 1997.

Arenas listed below reflect those that had been intended for use in the 2020 season before COVID-19 led to an abbreviated season played entirely at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

Conference	Team	City	Arena	Capacity	Joined	Head coach
Eastern
	Atlanta Dream	College Park, Georgia	Gateway Center Arena	3,500	2008	Nicki Collen
	Chicago Sky	Chicago, Illinois	Wintrust Arena	10,387	2006	James Wade
	Connecticut Sun	Uncasville, Connecticut	Mohegan Sun Arena	9,323	1999\| Curt Miller
	Indiana Fever	Indianapolis, Indiana	Hinkle Fieldhouse	9,100	2000	Marianne Stanley
	New York Liberty	Brooklyn, New York	Barclays Center	17,732	1997	Walt Hopkins
	Washington Mystics	Washington, D.C.	Entertainment and Sports Arena	4,200	1998	Mike Thibault
Western
	Dallas Wings	Arlington, Texas	College Park Center	7,000	1998\| Brian Agler
	Las Vegas Aces	Paradise, Nevada	Mandalay Bay Events Center	12,000	1997\| Bill Laimbeer
	Los Angeles Sparks	Los Angeles, California	Staples Center	18,997	1997	Derek Fisher
	Minnesota Lynx	Minneapolis, Minnesota	Target Center	19,356	1999	Cheryl Reeve
	Phoenix Mercury	Phoenix, Arizona	Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum	14,870	1997	Sandy Brondello
	Seattle Storm	Seattle, Washington Everett, Washington	Alaska Airlines Arena Angel of the Winds Arena	10,000 8,500	2000	Dan Hughes
An asterisk (*) in the table above denotes a franchise move; an italicized name in the associated map denotes the former presence of a franchise under that name at the location shown. See the respective team articles for more information.