(Here's a link to a story that describes the tourney format.)
https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/31461698/wnba-2021-commissioner-cup-standings

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I don't have strong feelings about an in-season tourney that Adam Silver is trying to get through. It would be something else to add interest to the regular season, but adding games would affect the health of the players.

But this WNBA set up - all the teams have ten regular-season games that count for the in-season tourney - seems doable. The only added game would be for the two finalists.

This format doesn't seem like a bad idea at the least.

What do you think?

This having a tournament in the middle of the season... just to have a tournament in the middle of the season? Silver's selling point seems to be that players on the winning team get an extra million apiece, but it doesn't seem like there's anything else at stake here.

I've also read that part of Silver's pitch for this would be reducing the regular season by four games. But do the player's salaries start getting pro-rated? Do teams start handing out smaller contracts because of it? If so, the extra million to the players on the winning team just ends being money that the players have lost.

Play the regular season, then start the play-offs. Adding in artificial "events" is just cynical cash grab.

each team playing for something in their hometown, funded by the gates and not as a tax write-off for the owners

i could get with that

to Stern cuz fuck that guy...but


The gimmicks are getting a little tired. The All-star game is more silly than it has ever been, the play-in tournament is meh at best, and this mid-season shit would be fucking stupid.


The NBA has a great product...they should have more confidence in said product.


Make the regular season more important by requiring players play x amount of games to be considered for awards/all-nba teams, throw more money at teams that win standings, etc.

And start financially punishing teams that are perpetually bad. Like, if you go 5+ years without making the playoffs you should start losing your share or some shit.


Try little tweaks like that prior to changing shit up completely.

Points in the 3rd quarter?

the World in the main game.

I guess the tourney is a compromise between doing nothing and cutting 10 or more games from the regular season.

Likely for this tourney to be successful at grabbing interest, they'd have to run it a number of years and add some prize(s) besides money (draft picks, raise in the winning team's cap, I dunno) to see traction with fans and players.

Either way, I'd like to see this go down. The sentiment around here was that the play-in tourney wasn't exciting but it held my interest and think it could be compelling down the line. At least we'd see how it is first-hand.

The league needs to do something. Failed attempts at getting fans to watch the actual games aren't tragic. It's better to try, take the research and improve the idea or scrap it all together than do nothing.

That's just me though.

as the NBA Finals?

Seriously.. they couldn’t push that back one day?