Credit: The Sports Gossip Show Brendon Kleen Wed, October 28, 2026 at 2:00 AM UTC · 3 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Game 6 of the WNBA Finals will be played Thursday at 12:30 p.m. ET in Atlanta after the NBA and WNBA negotiated a solution to play the game at State Farm Arena ahead of a scheduled Atlanta Hawks regular season matchup.
The WNBA is the target of yet another wave of ridicule, as the league could crown a champion before west-coasters are finished with breakfast . At the root of the mess is the reality that Atlanta Dream management clearly did not account for the possibility of their own team making the Finals.
In the latest episode of The Sports Gossip Show , hosts Madeline Hill and Charlotte Wilder lamented the "deeply embarrassing" situation and explained how it is emblematic of how women are so often treated in sports.
"I think it speaks to something that a lot of women are all too familiar with, which is … companies not taking you as seriously as they would if you were a man," Wilder said.
"This would never happen to the Hawks. And I understand that there are also different considerations when it comes to who operates a venue, how these things work. This is squarely on the Dream and the WNBA for not making sure this wouldn't be a problem, and having to scramble now. It's deeply embarrassing, and it's what you deal with especially as women in sports. Because you feel crazy. Like, this is the WNBA Finals."
Hill highlighted how Dream players were treated as an "afterthought" by their own team and league, arguing that even the worst NBA team would never be caught unprepared in this way. Women in sports, Hill said, are not given the "latitude" to have backup plans and be supported with guaranteed resources.
"At every turn, there's some obstacle that you're going to face and you don't even know what it is yet," she said. "And the obstacle was actually from, if we're talking about time, rewinding in time, back when your employer just didn't believe that you wouldn't make it to the Finals so it was clearly an afterthought."
Even in a season of continued viewership growth and a Finals that is surpassing expectations , the Dream are being reduced to a laughingstock in the sports news cycle because of a lack of foresight.
"It's women not being taken seriously and not given the same legitimacy and airtime that the men would get in this situation," Hill added. "I just guarantee you that if you go in the room where the Hawks were having their scheduling conversation, they have blocked off the NBA Finals."
"Women are not given that same latitude, and I'm sorry but they are just not treated the same way. And this is what happens."
On a more positive note, the NBA and WNBA were able to work out solutions for earlier games in the series despite the fact that the Dream are not part of the Hawks ownership group and are lesser tenants of State Farm Arena. Next season, all Dream games will be played in the larger building.
While these sorts of scheduling conflicts have been common in the WNBA's history, Wilder expressed optimism that the situation can be a "turning point" for the league as it realizes the need to prioritize fan access across its entire calendar.
"Hopefully all of these things and all of the noise that became the sort of political, culture war garbage surrounding the W from people acting in bad faith, I hope that this can become more of a turning point," she said.
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Source: Sports
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