By: Nina Cray
As the weather starts to heat up and the NBA playoffs progress, the professional sports world starts gearing up for the next tipoff: the WNBA.
With training camps and preseason games already underway, the official tipoff for the season will be held on Friday, May 6th where eight of the WNBA’s twelve teams will see action. The remaining four teams will tipoff the following day, Saturday May 7th, 2022.
The schedule for Friday’s games will be action-packed and showcase talents from stars like former WNBA MVPs Candace Parker and Nneka Ogwumike (Chicago Sky vs. LA Sparks) and WNBA career scoring leader Diana Taurasi when they host the Aces (Phoenix Mercury vs. Las Vegas Aces).
Opening night will also feature the Seattle Storm vs. the Minnesota Lynx and the Washington Mystics vs. the Indiana Fever – who is arguably the winner of this season’s WNBA draft haul with four picks from the 1st round of candidates.
This season, each team has an expanded regular season schedule and all-time-high 36 games per team.
The 26th season follows the historic 25th season – which was the most-watched since 2008 and set record-breaking numbers for merchandise sales and social media engagement.
The teams sitting at the top of the preseason power rankings currently are the reigning WNBA champions the Chicago Sky at No. 1, Connecticut Suns at No. 2 and Seattle Storm at No. 3.
Sources:
WNBA. 2021. DEC 9. “2022 WNBA Regular Season Tips Off May 6th.”
<https://www.wnba.com/news/2022-wnba-regular-season-tips-off-may-6th/>
Galligan, Rachel. 2022, April 25. Just Women’s Sports. “WNBA 2022 PreSeason Power Rankings: Sky, Sun Early Title Favorites”
<https://justwomenssports.com/wnba-preseason-power-rankings-chicago-sky-connecticut-sun/>