List of Every WNBA Champion by Year

The WNBA has crowned 29 champions since 1997. The Las Vegas Aces are the reigning titleholders, having swept the Phoenix Mercury 4-0 in the first best-of-seven Finals in league history, clinching on October 10, 2025. Twelve different franchises have won at least one title, and three of them — Houston, Minnesota and Seattle — have won four apiece.

Below is the complete year-by-year list: champion, runner-up, series result, Finals MVP and the head coach who won it. Nothing is truncated, and nothing is projected — the 2026 season is still being played.

Every WNBA Champion, 1997–2025

The Houston Comets: Four Titles, Then Nothing

The WNBA's first dynasty is also its most awkward footnote. The Houston Comets won the first four championships in league history — 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 — and did it with a core of Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson under Van Chancellor, who had come straight from 19 seasons at Mississippi State.

Cooper won Finals MVP all four times, a run no player has come close to matching. The 1997 title was decided in a single championship game, a 65-51 win over the New York Liberty; the next three came in best-of-three series.

Then the franchise simply stopped existing. Attendance and revenue eroded through the 2000s, ownership could not be replaced, and on December 1, 2008 the league announced the Comets would cease operations. A dispersal draft on December 8 scattered the roster across the remaining 13 teams. Houston's four banners belong to a team that has not played a game since 2008 — the only four-time champion in American major-league sports that no longer exists.

There is a strange coda: the Connecticut Sun were sold to Tilman Fertitta and approved for relocation to Houston starting in 2027. That brings WNBA basketball back to the city, but not the Comets' history. A relocated franchise carries its own record book, not the one belonging to a team that folded.

The Aces' Run

The Las Vegas Aces have won three of the last four championships: 2022, 2023 and 2025. Becky Hammon took over in December 2021 after eight seasons as an NBA assistant in San Antonio and won a title in her first year on the job, the first rookie head coach to do it.

The 2024 season is what keeps this from being a straight four-peat. Las Vegas was chasing a third consecutive title and ran into the New York Liberty in the semifinals, losing 3-1. New York went on to win its first championship, beating Minnesota 3-2 in an overtime Game 5.

The Aces came back in 2025 as the No. 2 seed at 30-14, survived a five-game semifinal against Indiana that ended in overtime, and then swept Phoenix in the first best-of-seven Finals the league has ever staged. A'ja Wilson took Finals MVP for the second time. Hammon now has three rings in four seasons — a pace only Van Chancellor has matched.

Note also the franchise's own strange history. The Aces began life as the Utah Starzz in 1997, became the San Antonio Silver Stars in 2003 and the San Antonio Stars in 2014, and moved to Las Vegas for 2018. The 2008 Finals loss to Detroit in the table above is on the same franchise ledger as the 2022, 2023 and 2025 titles.

Coaches With Multiple Titles

Six coaches have won more than one WNBA championship, and the top of the list is a two-way tie.

Two of those careers stand out for reasons beyond the count. Brian Agler and Sandy Brondello are the only coaches to win titles with two different franchises. And the 2011 Finals — Reeve's Lynx against Marynell Meadors' Atlanta Dream — was the first WNBA championship series in which both teams were coached by women.

One title in the list belongs to a coach who was never supposed to be there: Gary Kloppenburg led Seattle to the 2020 championship in the Florida bubble after head coach Dan Hughes, who had won the 2018 title with the same franchise, sat out the season on medical advice.

The Champions That No Longer Exist

Two of the 12 title-winning franchises are gone.

Houston Comets (4 titles, 1997–2000). Folded December 2008.

Sacramento Monarchs (1 title, 2005). The Monarchs beat Connecticut 3-1 for the 2005 championship and returned to the Finals in 2006, losing to Detroit in the first WNBA Finals to reach a fifth game. The Maloof family announced on November 20, 2009 that it would no longer operate the team; when no new ownership was found, the roster went into a dispersal draft in December 2009.

A third champion still exists but under a different name and in a different state. The Detroit Shock won in 2003, 2006 and 2008, moved to Tulsa in 2010 and to Dallas in 2016. The Dallas Wings claim those three championships as part of a continuous franchise history, which is the standard convention — the same one that makes the Aces' 2008 Finals appearance a San Antonio result on a Las Vegas ledger. Whether a Dallas fan in 2026 feels much ownership of a 2003 title won in Michigan is a different question, and it is the reason lists of WNBA championships often disagree with each other. There is more on how to count these in Which WNBA Teams Have Won the Most Championships?.

Detroit, incidentally, is coming back: the WNBA approved an expansion franchise there for the 2029 season, alongside Cleveland in 2028 and Philadelphia in 2030.

How the Finals Series Has Grown

The scorelines in the table above are not comparable across eras, because the championship series has been four different lengths.

The 1997 title was settled in 40 minutes of basketball. The 2025 title required a team to win four games. That is why "2-0" in 2000 and "4-0" in 2025 are both sweeps but mean very different things, and why the 2006 Detroit-Sacramento series was billed as the first Finals ever to reach a Game 5.

The league had wanted the longer Finals for years and finally moved when charter flights across the season and postseason made the travel workable. The full mechanics of how teams get there are in WNBA Playoff Format Explained.

A Few Patterns Worth Noticing

• Repeat champions are rare. Only three franchises have gone back-to-back: Houston (four straight, 1997–2000), Los Angeles (2001–02) and Las Vegas (2022–23). Seattle has four titles spread across 17 seasons and never once defended one.
• Minnesota is the most successful team never to repeat. Four titles in seven years (2011–2017) plus three Finals losses, including 2024.
• New York waited the longest. The Liberty lost five Finals — 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2023 — before winning in 2024.
• Finals MVP has broadened. Emma Meesseman won in 2019 as a bench player, the first to do so, and she is one of only three international winners of the award, alongside Lauren Jackson (2010) and Jonquel Jones (2024).

The 2026 Season Is Still Being Played

The 2026 WNBA regular season runs May 8 through September 24, 2026, with the playoffs starting September 27 and the Finals scheduled for October. There is no 2026 champion yet. Any list that shows one is guessing.

This page will be updated within a day of the 2026 Finals ending, adding a 30th row with the champion, runner-up, series result, Finals MVP and head coach. Until then, the Las Vegas Aces are the defending champions and the list ends at 2025.

FAQ

Who has won the most WNBA championships? Three franchises are tied with four each: the Houston Comets (1997–2000), the Minnesota Lynx (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) and the Seattle Storm (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020).

Who won the most recent WNBA championship? The Las Vegas Aces, who swept the Phoenix Mercury 4-0 in the 2025 Finals and clinched on October 10, 2025. A'ja Wilson was Finals MVP.

Has any team won four titles in a row? Only the Houston Comets, who won the league's first four championships from 1997 through 2000. No other franchise has won more than two consecutive.

Which coach has the most WNBA titles? Van Chancellor and Cheryl Reeve are tied at four. Bill Laimbeer and Becky Hammon each have three.

Do the Dallas Wings count the Detroit Shock's championships? Yes. The franchise moved from Detroit to Tulsa in 2010 and to Dallas in 2016, and the 2003, 2006 and 2008 titles are carried forward as part of its history, the same way relocated teams in every other league carry theirs.

Which teams have lost the most WNBA Finals? The New York Liberty have five Finals losses, more than any other franchise, though they finally broke through in 2024. The Connecticut Sun are 0-4 in the Finals.

Was the first WNBA Finals really one game? Yes. The 1997 championship was decided in a single game on August 30, 1997, with Houston beating New York 65-51. The series format did not appear until 1998.

Is there a 2026 WNBA champion yet? No. The 2026 regular season ends September 24, 2026 and the Finals are played in October. This page updates as soon as that series is over.