Indiana Fever start Commissioner's Cup play Tuesday. How the in-season tournament works
NDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Fever start Commissioner's Cup play on Tuesday night, starting the fight for a half-million prize pool.
The Commissioner's Cup, which started in 2021, is an annual in-season tournament. The WNBA revamped the cup rules and play in 2024, shortening the number of pool play games from 10 to five and putting all those games in the span of two weeks.
Here's how the Commissioner's Cup works:
The Commissioner's Cup is the WNBA's in-season tournament, pitting the Eastern and Western Conferences against each other. Teams will play five games against different conference opponents, and those games — which are also a part of the regular season — will run from June 3-17.
Eastern Conference teams include the Atlanta Dream, Connecticut Sun, Chicago Sky, Indiana Fever, New York Liberty, and Washington Mystics.
Western Conference Teams are the Minnesota Lynx, Phoenix Mercury, Dallas Wings, Golden State Valkyries, Seattle Storm, Los Angeles Sparks, and Las Vegas Aces.
The Eastern Conference teams will play five games as part of cup play, but the Western Conference teams, with the addition of the Golden State Valkyries this season, will play six games in cup play.
The two teams with the best cup play in their respective conferences will play in the Commissioner's Cup final, which will be on July 1. This game does not count toward the regular-season win-loss record.
The team with the highest winning percentage throughout cup play will host the game. If there's a tie in the winning percentage, home-court advantage will be determined by the point differential in cup play.
The grand prize is a $500,000 pool to be split among the winning team, which would amount to around $45,000 per player.
Coinbase added about $120,000 to the pool, as well, and all players in the Commissioner's Cup final will get at least $5,000 in cryptocurrency.
The Fever have not won the Commissioner's Cup, or even been in the final, since the tournament started in 2021.
Seattle won in 2021, Las Vegas in 2022, New York in 2023, and Minnesota in 2024.
7 p.m. Tues., June 3: Washington at Indiana
8 p.m. Sat., June 7: Indiana at Chicago
7:30 p.m. Tues., June 10: Indiana at Atlanta
3 p.m. Sat. June 14: New York at Indiana
7 p.m. Tues. June 17: Connecticut at Indiana
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at capeterson@gannett.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67.
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