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The 2025 WNBA Draft is just over one month away. On April 14, 2025 the best women’s basketball prospects in the country will gather to learn their professional destination. But there’s just one problem. Nobody knows where they’re actually going to gather.
The 2024 draft at the Brooklyn Academy of Music hosted the draft and drew 1,000 fans, which was a sellout. It marked the first time since 2016 that the draft actually took place in a physical location and the ESPN broadcast averaged 2.4 million viewers, an all-time high and 328% increase from 2023 per Front Office Sports . From 2014-2016 it was held at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. But in the years to follow, the WNBA Draft occurred remotely without players gathers.
WNBA Still Searching For 2025 Draft Location Just One Month Before Scheduled Date
But with just 34 days until the 2025 draft, the time and location are both listed as “TBD” on the league website. Notably, the projected first pick in this year’s draft is UConn star Paige Bueckers, which could make a return to Mohegan Sun all that much more attractive. Bueckers’ teammate Azzi Fudd is also a projected top-10 pick should she opt to leave the Huskies for the WNBA.
“I think I have to sit down and talk with my family, with the people closest to me, and just talk through the decisions, options,” Fudd recently told ESPN’s Alexa Philippou about her pending draft decision. “I’m a big pros and cons list-er to kind of get the emotions out, the feelings out, and just write down the facts. So I think a pros and cons list is in my near future.”
The lack of location also comes at a time where league executives are in the spotlight. Superstar rookie Angel Reese and rising star Dijonai Carrington recently hinted at the idea of a work stoppage in 2026. Between the two storylines – the draft and impending strike – the WNBA risks losing much of the momentum it gained in 2024.
While the first issue is seemingly easily fixable, the second is not. And WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert clearly has her work cut out for her.