WNBA LiveAccess
Current season, competition or edition: 2017 WNBA season
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The WNBA logo as redesigned in 2013
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| Sport | Basketball |
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| Founded | April 24, 1996 |
| Founder | David Stern |
| Inaugural season | 1997 |
| President | Lisa Borders |
| Motto | "Watch Me Work" |
| No. of teams | 12 |
| Country | United States |
| Continent | Americas |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Los Angeles Sparks (3rd) |
| Most titles | Houston Comets (4) |
| TV partner(s) |
ABC ESPN NBA TV NBA TV Canada |
| Official website | www.WNBA.com |
The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is the women's professional basketball league in North America. It is currently composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association (NBA), and league play started in 1997. The regular season is played from June to September with the All Star game being played midway through the season in July and the WNBA Finals at the end of September until the beginning of October.
Many WNBA teams have direct NBA counterparts and play in the same arena. The Connecticut Sun, Seattle Storm, Dallas Wings, and Chicago Sky are the only teams that do not share an arena with a direct NBA counterpart, although two of the four (the Wings and the Sky) share a market with an NBA counterpart, and the Storm shared an arena and market with an NBA team at the time of its founding. The four aforementioned franchises, along with the Atlanta Dream and the Los Angeles Sparks, are all independently owned.
The creation of the WNBA was officially approved by the NBA Board of Governors on April 24, 1996, and announced at a press conference with Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes in attendance. The new WNBA had to compete with the recently formed American Basketball League, another professional women's basketball league that began play in 1996.
The WNBA began with eight teams: the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets and New York Liberty in the Eastern Conference; and the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs and Utah Starzz in the Western Conference.
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