WNBA Finals Game 6 Set for Midday Against NBA Schedule

The Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries will play Game 6 of the WNBA Finals on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The midday start time comes after a scheduling conflict with the NBA forced the league to move the game earlier in the day.

The two teams are set to meet at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The venue change occurred because the Dream's regular season home, Gateway Center Arena, holds only 5,000 seats. League officials announced on October 13 that Games 3 and 4 would move to State Farm Arena, which seats nearly 17,000 fans. The arena is also the home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks.

The Hawks are scheduled to play the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Instead of changing the NBA game time, the WNBA scheduled the Finals matchup for the afternoon. The ticket inventory for the 12:30 p.m. start is already sold out.

Chiney Ogwumike, an ESPN basketball analyst, criticized the decision on air this week. She said the players and fans deserve a primetime slot and called the last-minute handling of the schedule an epic fail. One viral TikTok post described the time as quite literally insane.

The Dream's owners sent an open letter to Atlanta residents earlier this week. They stated that the team raised concerns about the scheduling conflict months ago. The letter claimed their concerns did not receive the attention or urgency they deserved.

The Valkyries currently lead the series 3-2. A win on Thursday would give the two-year-old franchise its first WNBA championship. The game will air at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time, leading some players to joke that fans should call out of work to watch.

Game 4 of this series drew nearly 2 million viewers, making it the most-watched WNBA Finals game in history. The Walt Disney Company owns both ABC News and ESPN.