Is Cathy Engelbert good at her job? First: What is her job? The commissioner of the WNBA represents the interests of WNBA ownership. Like any professional sports league’s commissioner, her job exists to absorb boos at drafts and trophy presentations. Unlike other commissioners, Engelbert’s league is structured so that she answers to another boss, who answers to 30 bosses himself. What does she think her job is? The bios she uses at conferences say it is “setting the vision for the WNBA,” “overseeing the league’s day-to-day business and basketball operations,” “bolstering visibility for the sport of women’s basketball,” “empowering the WNBA players,” “leading the business through transformation,” and “enhancing fan engagement.”
Consider the visibility bolstered, the fan engaged, the WNBA player empowered. On Tuesday afternoon, Minnesota Lynx star and WNBPA vice president Napheesa Collier read a prepared statement at her season-end exit press conference, a six-minute obloquy of the league and its commissioner. “We have the best players in the world. We have the best fans in the world. But right now, we have the worst leadership in the world,” Collier said.
As the deadline to ink the next CBA looms, I couldn’t help but admire the statement’s surgical imprecision. It picks up where Collier’s coach left off, infuriated with inconsistent officiating and the league’s uninterest in fixing it. But then it quietly unfolds into something else. Collier returns to a conversation she had with Engelbert last February in Miami, where the offseason 3x3 league Unrivaled is based (Collier is a co-founder):
At Unrivaled this past February, I sat across from Cathy and asked how she planned to address the officiating issues in our league. Her response was, “Well, only the losers complain about the refs.” I also asked how she planned to fix the fact that players like Caitlin, Angel and Paige, who are clearly driving massive revenue for the league, are making so little for their first four years. Her response was, “Caitlin should be grateful she makes $60 million off the court because without the platform the WNBA gives her, she wouldn't make anything.”
In that same conversation, she told me, “Players should be on their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.” That’s the mentality driving our league from the top. We go to battle every day to protect a shield that doesn’t value us. The league believes it succeeds despite its players, not because of them.
The pivot draws three of the largest and craziest WNBA fanbases together in a solidaristic triple entente. Caitlin, Angel, Paige—the faces of the game you love—are on one side of the bargaining table, and tactless Cathy Engelbert is on the other. By keeping salaries low, by ensuring that any millions must be made “off the court” and not on it, the owners may have fashioned a weapon against themselves. These women play basketball well, but public perception pays their bills, and at that game, they might be just as skilled.
I don’t imagine her myriad bosses are dissatisfied with Cathy Engelbert’s tenure. There have been some business misses: In 2022, a chunk of the league was sold at what now looks like an extremely low valuation in a capital raise for money to spend on digital marketing and revamping the WNBA website, which still absolutely sucks. They should do another capital raise to pay $75 million in damages to WNBA bloggers who have to spend any time on it. But anyway, since she took over as commissioner, ratings and revenues have dramatically increased. The league timed its expansion perfectly for a women’s basketball boom. “I think she’s a wicked smart business person, and the success she gets a lot of credit for,” a source “familiar with league office dynamics” told SBJ’s Tom Friend.
Friend reported in his article that Engelbert is likely to step down after these negotiations are complete. “She hasn’t connected; she’s not a relationship builder,” the source told him. That she does not endear herself to enough people tracks with her record of memorable gaffes: going on CNBC to cheerlead a race war; wearing a dress with the New York City skyline to last year’s Finals Game 5; mispronouncing Natalie Nakase’s name as she presented her the award for Coach of the Year. The end of a negotiation is admittedly a natural time for an executive to step down anyway; she will have served the second-longest of any WNBA leader. Whoever replaces her, however charming, would not have a meaningfully different set of priorities or responsibilities. Engelbert is just the face, but for now, a convenient one. That’s how PR fights are resolved: The public decides one face looks better than the other.
