This week on The IX Sports Podcast Basketball Edition, hosts Jackie Powell and Howard Megdal break down why Game 6 of the 2026 WNBA Finals is being played at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on a Thursday.
The reason is more nuanced than some on social media would make it appear, they said.
“But the Atlanta Dream made what I thought was a very smart decision to provide some transparency and to make it clear that this was not a decision that they made, and this was not a decision that were it purely up to them, they would have had to make … So let’s get into exactly how this happened,” Megdal said.
Essentially, with the necessity of Game 6, in order to play at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, some scheduling changes had to take place. State Farm Arena is not the Dream’s home arena, and the Dream are not the primary tenants — that’s the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.
The Hawks have a game scheduled against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the evening of Oct. 29, the date Game 6 was slated to take place on months ago, before teams even know whether they would be competing in the Finals. The Hawks were willing to move that game to accommodate the Dream, according to reporting from The IX Sports, but according to reporting from ESPN, the same could not be said for the ownership of the Cavaliers (who are notably the same owners of the soon-to-be WNBA team the Cleveland Sirens).
“Like a WNBA Finals game is ice cream out on the counter, right? It’s melting. You have to do it this week … So that needed to happen in that very specific time frame in that very specific place. Cleveland versus Atlanta regular season NBA. Oh, it’s already a back to back! So that’s a really good reason to take a back to back off the schedule,” Megdal said.
Powell said that multiple sources told The IX Sports that the decision was made at an NBA level, rather than a WNBA level.
Tune in to the episode to hear more about the controversy, why the blame should not rest wholly on the WNBA, and how Kiah Stokes has been a star player this series.
Make sure to subscribe to The IX Sports Podcast for in-depth coverage of women’s soccer, hockey and basketball; and tune in each weekday morning for a quick overview of the biggest headlines on Women’s Sports Daily, like WNBA news and PWHL expansion updates.
