The New York Liberty are set to host the Minnesota Lynx in the Commissioner’s Cup Championship Presented by Coinbase. The game will be on June 25 at 8 pm EST at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York on Prime Video.
The two teams have only faced each other in one game so far. The Lynx came out on top in the May 25 matchup, 84-67. The Lynx beat them in the shooting, rebounding, assists and blocks categories. They shot better in all three categories, FG, 3FG and FT while shooting an astounding 50% from 3-point range (14-28).
For the Liberty, Courtney Vandersloot and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton are both listed as questionable for Tuesday’s game. Nyara Sabally has been ruled out for the game.
For the Lynx, Diamond Miller is listed as doubtful ahead of Tuesday’s game.
The game cannot be played at the Liberty’s home court of Barclays Center due to the 2024 NBA Draft taking place at Barclays on June 26. The Liberty appealed to the league in December that a potential championship game would not work and the league “ignored” the team according to a report from amNY.
The Liberty also went to the WNBA earlier this month, before an alternate arena was available, and the league stated the game would have to be played in Minnesota, despite the Liberty earning home court. The team even suggested designating their next home game against the Lynx on July 2 as the championship game. However, the Lynx had the final say about when the game should take place.
The Liberty will look to be the first team to repeat as Commissioner’s Cup Champions.
Interestingly, Breanna Stewart will have appeared in 3 of the 4 Cup championships. She earned Cup MVP with the Seattle Storm.
The total prize money is $500,000 with each player on the winning team earning around $30,000. The game’s MVP wins an additional $5,000. The winning team also receives the Commissioner’s Cup Trophy. The losing team earns $10,000 per player.
In addition, Coinbase has committed another $120,000 in cryptocurrency with $5,000 guaranteed for each player participating in the Championship Game.
In addition to personal monetary profits, the Commissioner’s Cup is also a platform for the WNBA to make charitable contributions to non-profit organizations aligned to the players’ social justice work. According to the WNBA,
“For each Cup game from June 1-13, winning teams earned a monetary donation of $3,000 for their chosen local organization; losing teams earned $1,000 for their selected organization. An additional $10,000 donation will be made to the non-profit organization aligned with the winner of the Championship Game of the Commissioner’s Cup presented by Coinbase and $5,000 will be made to the organization of the runner-up. The donations will be presented to each organization following the conclusion of the Commissioner’s Cup Championship.”
New York will be playing for Women Creating Change and Minnesota will be playing for Gender Justice.
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