The WNBA is in hot water again

The hottest topic in sports discourse this week is the WNBA Finals.

Not the actual games, though. Not whether two-way star Angel Reese can lead the Atlanta Dream to their first-ever championship. Not whether the Golden State Valkyries can win the title in just their second year of existence. Not even whether this is maybe not the most exciting matchup as these teams are averaging only 69 points per game apiece in the series after Caitlin Clark's Indiana Fever averaged 96 in the regular season.

Instead, everyone is firing off takes about the unusual start time of tomorrow's Game 6 and whether the league should have moved it to a different time and/or place. That's right, to paraphrase Allen Iverson: We talkin' about… logistics?

To be fair, that start time is extremely bizarre: 12:30 p.m. ET, which puts it at 9:30 a.m. ET in the Bay Area as Golden State looks to finish off the series with a win. While this may conjure nostalgic black-and-white images of stickball-playing Brooklyn kids ditching school to listen to the 1955 World Series on the transistor radio, a weekday afternoon championship game is obviously quite suboptimal in today's broadcast-focused age.

So, why is this happening?

It starts with the decision to move the Dream's home Finals games from their usual 3,500-seat arena to the 17,000-seat home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks. It paid off as both of the Atlanta-hosted games so far were sell-outs — including last Saturday's Game 4, which was moved up 2½ hours to 1 p.m. ET because the Hawks had their home opener that night.

The earlier start time on Saturday wasn't a big deal because sports fans are accustomed to weekend matinees. But weekdays are a different story, and the WNBA found itself in quite the pickle when