The most damning judgment of Cathy Engelbert’s legacy as WNBA commissioner is that the league is thriving in spite of her, rather than because of her.
Engelbert had the good fortune to be commissioner at a time when interest in women’s sports is exploding and Caitlin Clark has captivated the country. Instead of moving heaven and earth to capitalize on that, Engelbert alienated her players, dragged her feet on league expansion and charter flights, and was largely silent when internet trolls and bad actors spewed racism and hate and tried to make a mockery of the league.
She has been unable to meet the moment she was gifted, and she will not be missed.
“I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined,”
Engelbert said in the Friday, Sept. 4, statement announcing her retirement at the end of the season.
“I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA team owners and staff, players, investors, fans and the powerhouse league office staff, who believed in what this league could become," she added. "I retire with immense gratitude and tremendous optimism for the future of the WNBA, with the best yet to come."
With Engelbert in the rearview.
Cathy Engelbert could have left a larger mark
There are commissioners who are transformative. The NBA’s David Stern comes to mind, cleaning up the league's drug problems and fostering global growth of the game by blessing the Dream Team’s participation at the 1992 Olympics. There are commissioners who are caretakers, wise enough to recognize a good thing and not mess it up. There are commissioners who are collaborative, seeing themselves as partners with the players rather than overlords.
Engelbert was none of those.
It is true the W is a vastly different league than when Engelbert took over in 2019. The salary cap ballooned almost 400% in the latest collective bargaining agreement, with the minimum player salary now $270,000, a far cry from its previous $66,079 floor. Purpose-built practice facilities are now the norm, rather than a wish. Teams are filling NBA arenas and ratings are rivaling the major men’s sports.
But this is a credit to the league's players, not Engelbert.
According to AMS, the W's indexed viewership — think market share of ratings for all sports — began rising in 2014 and has grown in all but one year, 2017, since then. A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi were competitive and entertaining, and fans, owners and sponsors alike were taking note.
Then came Clark, whose pursuit of the NCAA scoring record and logo 3s made her a national icon in a way few women athletes had been previously. Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and Olivia Miles have only broadened the league's appeal.
It’s true Engelbert recognized this.
"She brought a significant amount of business experience to the league and helped make the case for the value of The W and the opportunity in front of it," WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said in a statement.
But it's also fair to ask whether Engelbert did enough for the W.
Did Cathy Engelbert do enough to improve the W?
The WNBA's $3.1 billion media rights deal? There are some, Jackson included, who thought it was undervalued and questioned why Engelbert didn’t insist on it being negotiated separately from the NBA's much larger deal.
"We have wondered for months how the NBA would value the WNBA in its media rights deal," Jackson said when the initial deal was announced in 2024. "With a reportedly $75 billion deal on the table, the (NBA) is in control of its own destiny. More precisely, the NBA controls the destiny of the WNBA."
The expansion of the league from 12 teams to an eventual 18? Engelbert dragged her feet – the W went 17 years between expansion teams – even as the NWSL was showing there was a market for more women's teams and the Golden State Valkyries were a blockbuster from the start.
The charter flights? Also a year too late, and only after incidents where player safety was at risk.
Most egregious, though, has been Engelbert’s disregard for her players and her inability to protect them.
She didn’t take the vitriol and hate players were experiencing seriously at first, downplaying it as a reflection of rivalries and a potential marketing boon. Rather than immediately calling out the firestorm over transgender players as the fabricated issue it is, her lengthy silence allowed bad actors to co-opt the WNBA as a stage for their performative nonsense.
Because of Engelbert’s inaction, these issues – one very real and the other completely fabricated – have continued to fester and deflect attention from the very game she is supposed to be championing.
The bare minimum for every commissioner is to leave a league better than you found it. Engelbert can at least say that, even if she'll be remembered most for all the ways she fell short.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: WNBA thrived despite Cathy Engelbert. She won't be missed | Opinion
