The longest anyone has led a WNBA race without winning it: the Charlotte Sting ended 53 of the 1998 East race's 61 playing days in first place, 87% of them, and finished behind the Cleveland Rockers. The longest unbroken spell of that lead ran 51 days. At the other end, the New York Liberty won the 2017 East race having led on eleven of its 79 playing days, never more than three in a row. Both lists below rank by the share of a race's playing days a team spent in first place. How that is counted is spelled out under the tables.
Companion pages: Closest WNBA races and Biggest WNBA comebacks and collapses.
| Rank | Race | Team that led | Days in first | Playing days | Share | Eventual winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1998 East | Charlotte Sting | 53 | 61 | 87% | Cleveland Rockers |
| 2 | 2025 East | New York Liberty | 67 | 95 | 71% | Atlanta Dream |
| 3 | 2008 East | Connecticut Sun | 43 | 69 | 62% | Detroit Shock |
| 4 | 2016 West | Los Angeles Sparks | 45 | 73 | 62% | Minnesota Lynx |
| 5 | 2019 East | Connecticut Sun | 45 | 73 | 62% | Washington Mystics |
| 6 | 2000 West | Houston Comets | 38 | 63 | 60% | Los Angeles Sparks |
| 7 | 2021 West | Seattle Storm | 43 | 74 | 58% | Las Vegas Aces |
| 8 | 2019 West | Las Vegas Aces | 42 | 73 | 58% | Los Angeles Sparks |
| 9 | 2017 East | Connecticut Sun | 37 | 79 | 47% | New York Liberty |
| 10 | 2013 East | Atlanta Dream | 35 | 81 | 43% | Chicago Sky |
| Rank | Race | Winner | Days in first | Playing days | Share | First place for good |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2017 East | New York Liberty | 11 | 79 | 14% | September 3, 2017 |
| 2 | 1998 East | Cleveland Rockers | 11 | 61 | 18% | August 14, 1998 |
| 3 | 2019 West | Los Angeles Sparks | 16 | 73 | 22% | September 5, 2019 |
| 4 | 2000 East | New York Liberty | 17 | 61 | 28% | July 24, 2000 |
| 5 | 2025 East | Atlanta Dream | 29 | 95 | 31% | August 21, 2025 |
| 6 | 2007 West | Phoenix Mercury | 21 | 66 | 32% | August 7, 2007 |
| 7 | 2018 East | Atlanta Dream | 26 | 68 | 38% | July 19, 2018 |
| 8 | 2000 West | Los Angeles Sparks | 25 | 63 | 40% | July 23, 2000 |
| 9 | 2021 West | Las Vegas Aces | 33 | 74 | 45% | August 17, 2021 |
| 10 | 2008 West | San Antonio Silver Stars | 31 | 67 | 46% | September 9, 2008 |
Everything on this page comes from the same day-by-day season files the charts draw, with standings read as each day ended. All 68 charted WNBA races from 29 finished seasons enter: every conference and playoff race from 1997 to 2025. Wild card races are not ranked; their story is the playoff cutoff, not first place. The 2026 season joins these lists when it ends. A team's time in first place is counted once per season, at its longest, whichever of its charted races it came in.
Longest leads lost is the club that ended the most of a race's playing days in first place and did not finish first. Any club in the race qualifies, not the runner-up alone, because a club can lead for four months and finish fifth.
Winners who led least is the same count for the club that did win, ranked from the fewest days up. Its last column is the day the winner took first place for good, which the comebacks page ranks on.
Only days this race's teams played are counted, the same rule the closest races page counts closeness over. A strike or a pause freezes the standings, and a leader sitting out an idle stretch would collect time on top for nothing.
The ranking is by share rather than by the raw count, because a league's seasons are not all the same length and a short one would otherwise win by being short. Seasons cut short by a strike or a stoppage are ranked on what was played, which is the same rule and the reason for it. The count and the total are printed beside the share, so the order can be checked; where two rows print the same whole percent, the unrounded share put them in that order.
A day two clubs end level at the top is a day in first place for both of them, which is what holding first place means in English. So the two counts of one race can add up to more than the race's playing days. Races whose top two the standings cannot separate appear on neither list: with no winner, the data can name neither the club that lost a lead nor the club that kept one.
A lead measured in days and a lead measured in games are different questions, and the two lists often disagree about which season was the bigger collapse; the comebacks page ranks the same blown leads by size. Only finished seasons are ranked; every irregularity in the record is listed in the data notes.