NEW YORK — The WNBA has grown at an exponential rate during Cathy Engelbert’s tenure as commissioner, a stewardship that at times has been tumultuous during her nearly seven years at the helm.
Engelbert, the second-longest tenured WNBA president or commissioner, helped negotiate a transformative collective bargaining agreement this past spring that gives the WNBA its first core of million-dollar player salaries.
“There’s not a lot of jobs where you can make over 30-plus millionaires instantly, right?” Engelbert said in a phone interview with the Associated Press heading into this weekend’s WNBA All-Star festivities in Chicago. “It just doesn’t exist in most companies, except if you’re like a stock-option company, and your stock does really well. Most of them are under the age of 30 and there are more to come.”
Even with the financial gains, the WNBA’s growth has come amid a strained partnership between the commissioner and players. Engelbert has been criticized for how she has handled various situations, including for being out of touch or not doing enough to help combat social media vitriol.
Engelbert will meet with the executive committee of the players’ union on Tuesday to discuss the recent uptick in online hatred and threats directed toward players.
New York Liberty All-Star Breanna Stewart, vice president of the WNBA players’ union executive committee, said there is a respect for Engelbert among the players, just not much of a relationship.
Her Liberty teammate, Sabrina Ionescu, said she talks more to NBA commissioner Adam Silver than Engelbert.
WNBA business is booming
While the commissioner continues to try and strengthen her relationship with players, the business of the WNBA has thrived.
Engelbert was involved in talks that led to a record media rights deal worth over $3 billion. The league has had record ratings, attendance and team valuations, and will expand to a record 18 teams by 2030.
“We’ve been in hypergrowth mode now for two or three years and companies, if you look back in time, you are not in hypergrowth mode forever,” Engelbert said. “We’re preparing ourselves now for the next version of ourselves, which probably isn’t as hypergrowth.”
From a business standpoint, though, the league has grown, including navigating the coronavirus pandemic that could have crippled the WNBA.
“Give Cathy credit, as she advocated for the season,” Seattle Storm owner Ginny Gilder said. “We had no idea what was going to happen. People had to make decisions. Cathy pushed the Board of Governors to not only have a shortened season, but to fully pay the players. Don’t bicker. We were going to figure out the finances.”
Expansion fees have gone up five-fold over the past few seasons. Golden State paid $50 million to join the league and Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia — all joining the league over the next four years — each paid $250 million.
“Look at the financial side in such a short period of time — Cathy with all the work she did and the staff she hired deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that,” Gilder said. “If you look around the league from 2015 to 2020 to now, you know it is a completely new day.”
Valuations of teams were around $5 million to $10 million a decade ago and now the average is around $460 million, Engelbert said.
“When you’re CEO, when you’re commissioner, you’re going to have good days and bad days. But if you just looked at the overall scorecard, you’d have to say we’re doing great,” Washington Mystics owner Ted Leonsis said.
More endorsements for WNBA players
It’s nearly impossible to turn on a major sporting event over the past few years without seeing a WNBA player featured in a commercial. From Gatorade to State Farm, Nike and CarMax, product ads feature some of the league’s top newsmakers, including Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, A’ja Wilson and Sabrina Ionescu.
Engelbert said when Clark was drafted, it created a “domino effect, because they started seeing the value of putting players in their ads and then separately endorsing the players. I’m really proud of that because when I came to the league, absent a few sneakers ads, I don’t remember any players in spots. Maybe there were a few.”
The commissioner has seen the trend continue with younger players coming into the league, including Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and Olivia Miles.
“Everybody sees the W is here to stay,” the commissioner said.
The commissioner’s future and what’s next for the WNBA
Engelbert deflected questions about her future other than to say she’s turning 62 this year and that was the mandatory retirement age at her old job at Deloitte, where she was the president.
“I haven’t given it a ton of thought. We’ll think about it,” Engelbert said of how long she will stay in her current role, adding she is “focused on the whack-a-mole that is our season. I always tell people don’t focus on me, focus on the rest of my team.
“You always want to leave an organization better than you found it. Internally we’re proud of the team we’ve built.”
Silver said in Las Vegas that he supports what Engelbert is doing.
“I think Cathy continues to do a strong job building that league,” the NBA commissioner said. “We’ll have ongoing discussions about what the future looks like.”
With media rights stable for the next decade as well as labor peace achieved and expansion finished for the immediate future, Engelbert said her list of priorities includes a look at officiating, with WNBA referees finding themselves at the center of questions from frustrated players, coaches and fans. She also wants to help teams with lower attendance improve those numbers, and expand the league’s international footprint.
Feinberg writes for the Associated Press.
