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Dan Wetzel
Multiple Authors
The WNBA has a new labor deal, two new expansion franchises (Portland and Toronto) and its biggest and most widespread media rights deal ever.
It has superstar A’ja Wilson seeking to lead her Las Vegas Aces to a fourth title in five years while veteran-led rosters in New York, Minnesota and elsewhere are eager to stop them.
It has a healthy Caitlin Clark on a playoff team, Angel Reese now on a contender (Atlanta) and Paige Bueckers reunited in Dallas with Azzi Fudd, her running mate from the University of Connecticut.
Everything is set up for the league to level up, at least if it can focus on the game, the talent and the competition, not personal feelings or wedge issues or whatever it was WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was doing on Monday night.
That’s when she at least partially overshadowed the league’s annual draft with a viral, and bizarre, answer to a relatively mundane question.
“[NBA commissioner] Adam Silver was asked last month about your future as the commissioner of the WNBA,” Madeline Kenney of the New York Post asked. “He didn’t know what you wanted to do. So I guess I am just curious, how much do you want to stay [as] the commissioner of the WNBA? How much longer do you anticipate being in this role?”
Engelbert apparently didn’t like the inquiry.
“I do crack up [on] how everybody’s focused on me, and you should be focused on the hundreds of amazing women and thousands of women who run this league outside of myself,” the commissioner said.
“I wonder whether you would ask that of a man, by the way, but I realize as women we get asked different questions than men do,” Engelbert later added.
Kenney responded that she would ask that of a man. But she shouldn’t have had to defend herself or her reasonable question.
Commissioners are criticized, second-guessed and badgered all the time. That’s part of the job. They get booed and sued; ripped and ratioed. Have you seen (or heard) the reaction to Roger Goodell at the NFL draft? How about Gary Bettman when he hands over the Stanley Cup? Plenty of media have called for Silver’s job all season for myriad reasons.
Does being a female executive in sports present unique challenges? Most likely, but this isn’t one of them. Man or woman, from pro sports to college conferences to golf tours, the boss gets judged because they made tough decisions that invite such criticism.
Kenney’s question wasn’t even hostile or confrontational — it didn’t advocate for Engelbert’s firing, it just asked when she might decide to step away.
Engelbert apparently thinks she’s special in this regard, which would normally be a personal problem. It becomes a leaguewide issue if it reflects the mindset heading into what should be the W’s biggest season ever.
There is too much potential here to have the focus shift from the upcoming season to issues such as these. All it does is invite additional, and in this case, fair criticism including from plenty of people who aren’t always fair to the league or its players.
Business is booming, after all. Last year, Golden State showed the successful model for expansion franchises by merging business, ticketing and marketing operations between the NBA’s Warriors and the WNBA Valkyries. Huge crowds and revenue followed.
It’s what is expected with this year’s new teams and why expansion fees have hit $250 million with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia coming.
The league had seemingly gotten past its labor disputes, which are never good for business. Regardless of the sport, many fans naturally recoil when they hear players demand more money or better treatment — even if deserved. They view playing a game for a living to be a dream come true.
Yet in the WNBA’s case, management also upset plenty of longtime fans who see the players as representatives in a larger, societywide, battle for equal pay. So it was complicated.
Engelbert then additionally alienated pretty much everyone when she, at least according to Minnesota star Napheesa Collier, dismissed low rookie pay, about $75,000 per year, for Clark, Reese and Bueckers, despite their enormous popularity.
“[Engelbert’s] response was, ‘Caitlin should be grateful she makes $16 million off the court because without the platform the WNBA gives her, she wouldn’t make anything,'” Collier said in September.
Clark, now entering her third season with Indiana, remains the WNBA’s golden ticket, whether the league wants to acknowledge it, or believes it to be “fair,” or not.
Like Tiger Woods once did for the PGA Tour, she brought an enormous fan base and unprecedented media attention with her from her record-breaking college career at Iowa.
Turning them into WNBA fans, not just CC fans, is one of the key priorities this year and beyond. Comments about how Clark should be grateful to the league, not vice versa, just turn those fans away.
The goal for 2026 should be to prop up the young stars, hype the veteran ones and keep the attention on the court, not on unnecessary distractions by the commissioner. The opportunity at hand is too important.
It’s not that there can’t be hard fouls and sharp words, rivalries and conflict. This is basketball. That’s part of the fun. Criticizing the commish is too.
From Engelbert on down, the WNBA, like every sports league, needs to be about “look at us,” not “woe is me.”
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