The 2024 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship game will take place Tuesday, June 25 in Belmont Park, New York. The New York Liberty will defend its 2023 Cup as the Eastern Conference representative against the Western Conference representative Minnesota Lynx, who is playing in its first such title game.
Both teams are playing for $500,000 in prize money but more importantly, MN and NYL are also playing for their designated charity or non-profit that also will get a piece of the prize money pot.
The Lynx are playing for Gender Justice, a Minneapolis-based organization that works to dismantle the legal, political, and structural barriers to gender equity. Liberty is playing for Women Creating Change, which works with underserved women and gender-expansive people is the Liberty’s choice.
This season marks the fourth Commissioner’s Cup, the WNBA’s in-season tournament which raises the stakes of regular-season play and creates more compensation for players who make it to the championship game. The Commissioner’s Cup also has the opportunity to impact the communities where the games are being played.
Chicago Sky and Milwaukee Bucks play-by-play announcer Lisa Byington, LaChina Robinson and Tamika Catchings will be on Tuesday’s broadcast that will be streamed by Prime Video.
During a Monday media call, the MSR asked all three women to speak on the added significance of Tuesday’s game.
“It’s important to understand that this is not just a basketball game” between #1 New York and #3 Minnesota, said Byington. “I think one of the great things about this league is how aware they are about contributing back to the community. We have seen year in, year out, where the WNBA has just taken a leadership role in all of those areas.
“And I do think that is another great way to bring attention to all the great things that the WNBA is doing this year and has done in the past.”
In 2020, the WNBA and the WNBPA formed the Social Justice Council as the driving force of important societal issues, such as advocating the power of voting.
“When we were in the ‘Wubble’ [in 2020], we did a really good job of making sure the players were able to select the organization that they wanted to support,” added Catchings, WNBA champion, four-time Olympian Gold Medalist and Hall of Fame.
Robinson, ESPN award-winning analyst, pointed out, “I hope this is a chance for people to look deeper into the work that their organizations are doing and the causes that women are buying into. These are causes that women are very passionate about.”
Byington said, “It’s a chance, in my opinion, to also just bring a bigger stage to what the WNBA is all about in recognizing the importance of the community, contributing to charity just one way that the WNBA has been so great as a leader and a leader in all those fronts.”