WNBA Finals and the national anthem: The rules and why some teams stay on the court and others don't

Fans who don’t usually watch the WNBA might be asking why the Golden State Valkyries and Atlanta Dream were not on the court during the playing of the national anthem ahead of Game 1 or 2 of the league's championship series.

Their absence created somewhat of a stir on social media. However, it's been common practice for many WNBA teams over at least the past six seasons to leave the court with 10 minutes left in pregame warmups — right before "The Star-Spangled Banner” is played. Teams have left to raise awareness for social justice issues or simply to continue to get ready for the game.

The Valkyries say they have maintained the same pregame routine of going inside the locker room for the anthem as they’ve done since becoming a WNBA franchise last year; Atlanta has left the court before the anthem the past several years.

A few teams, including Indiana and Minnesota, remained on the court for the anthem during the season.

There is some confusion about the current WNBA policy regarding the anthem.

While the league rulebook states what should happen during the anthem, the protocols were suspended years ago.

According to the rulebook, “Players, coaches, and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line during the playing of the National Anthem.”

It's unclear if the rule refers to just players who are on the court or entire teams.

Late in the 2017 season, the league suspended its protocols, saying in a memo to teams that players and coaches didn't have to follow them. The memo was sent to allow players to show support for victims in the wake of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that occurred that summer.

Three years later in 2020, teams left the court before the anthem as the WNBA dedicated that season to Breonna Taylor, who was killed in her Louisville, Kentucky, home. That year the entire season was played in Florida because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since 2020, many teams still leave the court before the anthem is played.

With the WNBA suspending its protocols, there seems to be a lack of clarity about who makes the final decision on whether teams remain on the court during the anthem.

The league appears to be deferring to its teams, which may be in need of more direction from the WNBA.

The WNBA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press regarding its anthem policy.

The U.S. national team always stays on the court for the playing of the anthem at the World Cup and the Olympics. One reason is because the timing is different from WNBA games.

During those international events, the anthems of both countries competing are played after the introduction of lineups before tipoff.

AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco contributed to this report.

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese (5) is fouled by Golden State Valkyries center Kiah Stokes (41) during the second half of Game 2 of the WNBA basketball finals, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Justine Willard)

Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese (5) calls for a replay during the second half of Game 2 of the WNBA basketball finals against the Golden State Valkyries, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Justine Willard)

Golden State Valkyries guard Veronica Burton (22) moves the ball while defended by Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard (10) during the second half of Game 2 of the WNBA basketball finals in San Francisco, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Fans cheer as the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream face off in Game 2 of the WNBA basketball finals in San Francisco, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (Jessica Chastain/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

It’s not always patience and luck that get patients off the organ transplant waiting list and into the operating room.

Unlike in many areas of medicine, experts say there’s a lot of variation in the U.S. transplant system. Knowing there are differences and what to ask might help.

“I had to ask a lot of questions to figure out what it was that I could do to move the needle,” said Katherine Screws of Phoenix, who got a rare intestine transplant after she decided to get on the waiting list at more than one hospital to increase her chances.

It can be difficult to learn how to navigate that search, but there's publicly available information about which hospitals perform the most of each type of transplant, plus their waiting times and outcomes. Long used by experts analyzing the transplant system, the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, or SRTR, database has new patient-friendly tools developed in the hopes that more would-be transplant recipients will use it.

“People are making these really high-stakes decisions without understanding the options,” said Dr. Allyson Hart of Minnesota’s Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, who helped design the tools.

Here are some things to know.

There are about 100,000 people on the U.S. transplant list at any given time, the vast majority of whom need a kidney. With just over 49,000 transplants performed in the U.S last year, more people than ever are getting new organs. It’s mostly thanks to over a decade of increases in donations from the deceased, which are recovered by organ procurement organizations, or OPOs.

But more organs are needed to meet the demand, and different transplant hospitals have different criteria for who they'll accept on their waiting list.

Sometimes, “if a patient receives a ‘no’ at one place, they can go somewhere else and be successfully transplanted,” said Dr. Syed Ali Husain, a kidney specialist at NYU Langone Health.

Each transplant program's waiting list is linked to a national automated matching system. OPOs enter information about viable organs into that system, which generates lists of possible matches at multiple hospitals in order of priority. When the OPO offers an organ, the transplant team must quickly decide if it's a good choice for that patient or the offer moves to the hospital with the next-in-line candidate.

Some hospitals are more conservative than others about which organs they’ll accept, said Husain, who studies such differences.

One large study of kidney transplants found “there’s about a 16-fold variation in how quickly a patient will get transplanted at one center versus another,” he said. That's partly because some surgeons have more experience than others using kidneys with complex anatomy such as extra arteries, or those from older, sicker donors that still may be better than dialysis for the right patient.

Typically, a doctor or other health worker points patients to the nearest hospital offering the kind of transplant they need. But the SRTR database allows people to compare transplant centers around the country in multiple ways.

Search for a particular organ and a list of the highest-to-lowest-volume centers pops up, with dials to show how they perform on such measures as getting a transplant faster, survival on the waiting list and the new organ's survival. Click on those of interest for more data.

For certain organs, there's a “personalized decision guide” to customize the search a little more with demographic and medical information that compares outcomes for patients similar to you. It may be important to know, for example, if hospitals you’re considering perform transplants for a lot of older adults or people with certain chronic illnesses, Hart said.

There's more data about kidneys, the most-transplanted organ, and a kidney decision aid also allows adding factors such as blood type and diabetes that play a particular role in those transplants. That tool shows the chances of getting a transplant in the first five years after joining the waiting list, or the alternatives — still waiting or having died or become too sick to get a transplant.

Like Screws, the Phoenix patient, some people choose to “double list” at a hospital closer to home and another higher-volume transplant program further away.

While not everyone is able to travel, the search tools can also help inform discussions with your chosen transplant program.

It's OK to come to a transplant program to say, “'Hey, there are other centers that do this faster. Help me understand why,'” Hart said. “Sometimes, that conversation is really enough to prompt maybe more aggressive offer acceptance than that center might otherwise do on their own.”

The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Dr. Cal Matsumoto, a MedStar Georgetown University Hospital transplant surgeon, gestures to a chart on the digestive system on March 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)