{"id":880082,"date":"2026-09-04T19:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880082\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T19:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:58:14","slug":"cathy-engelberts-wnba-tenure-the-wins-and-losses-that-defined-her-seven-years-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880082\/","title":{"rendered":"Cathy Engelbert\u2019s WNBA tenure: the wins and losses that defined her seven years | WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert will retire from the role<\/a> on 31 December, bringing an end to a tenure that began with her appointment as the league\u2019s first commissioner in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter more than seven years at the WNBA<\/a> and more than 40 total years in business, I have made the decision to retire as WNBA Commissioner,\u201d Engelbert said in a statement shared by the league. \u201cIn 2019, I had the privilege of being appointed the league\u2019s first commissioner and to lead a league with enormous potential yet untapped awareness and significant undervaluation. Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women\u2019s sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engelbert has not always been popular with players or fans. Her tenure has featured landmark successes as well as bruising controversies. Here is a look at some of the defining moments of her seven years leading the WNBA.<\/p>\n

The wins<\/p>\n

Engelbert was thrust into the fire almost immediately when the Covid-19 pandemic threatened her first season in charge. She helped oversee the creation of the \u201cWubble\u201d at IMG Academy in Florida, allowing the league to stage a shortened 22-game season in 2020. The regular-season schedule has since expanded to 44 games and will grow to 50 in 2027.<\/p>\n

Engelbert has presided over the WNBA during a period of historic growth, with sharp increases in television audiences, attendance, sponsorship revenue and merchandise sales. It would be nonsensical to deny that her tenure produced enormous results.<\/p>\n

Engelbert also led the WNBA through a huge expansion from 12 teams to 18 by 2030. The Golden State Valkyries joined the league for the 2025 season, while this year saw the addition of both the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo. Teams from Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia will join by the decade\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

But there are two key achievements that will probably come to define Engelbert\u2019s time as commissioner: the league\u2019s landmark $3.1bn media rights deal<\/a> and the unprecedented collective bargaining agreement (CBA) struck between the league and the players, both of which were negotiated this year.<\/p>\n

That 11-year media rights deal resulted in an astronomical increase to the league\u2019s annual revenue \u2013 to the tune of $281m \u2013 and includes partners Amazon, Disney and NBC. The deal also resulted in more than 200 games being streamed or aired live this season (out of 330 total regular-season games).<\/p>\n

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks before the 2026 WNBA draft in New York. Photograph: Angelina Katsanis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The CBA negotiations between the WNBA and the Women\u2019s National Basketball Players\u2019 Association dominated most of the league\u2019s coverage ahead of the 2026 season. The two parties reached a verbal agreement<\/a> in March and ratified the deal a week later<\/a> after months of often-contentious negotiations. Though Engelbert was on the receiving end of much of the scrutiny that accompanied those negotiations, she maintained the end result was worth it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was contentious. Some of that is negotiations and the way negotiations work, and I know I talked about that at draft because, remember at draft we had just finished the negotiations, so it was a little more recent,\u201d Engelbert told reporters during WNBA All-Star Weekend. \u201cAnd today, I just can\u2019t be more proud of these players: how we were able to have so many players sign million-dollar-plus, multi-year contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cI think they know that the league is in a really good place, and now they\u2019re in a revenue share with the league, as you know, because that was part of the CBA. So I think I feel like at this and the Orange Carpet \u2026 we\u2019re all kind of gelling from that perspective of what\u2019s good for our players is good for our league, and we\u2019ll all benefit from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s CBA raised the salary cap from $1.5m to $7m, gave players approximately 20% of shared revenue, increased supermax salaries to $1.4m and established a $300,000 minimum salary. Just as significantly in the short term, after months of increasingly contentious negotiations, the agreement ensured the 2026 season began on time.<\/p>\n

The league will also continue to reap more benefits thanks to Engelbert\u2019s work as commissioner, including the creation of a fully centralized replay center starting in 2027.<\/p>\n

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The losses<\/p>\n

But Engelbert\u2019s tenure has also been marked by tensions with players, with her communication \u2013 or lack of it \u2013 at the heart of much of the criticism directed her way.<\/p>\n

For example, the Phoenix Mercury\u2019s Alyssa Thomas said she didn\u2019t hear from Engelbert after receiving death threats<\/a> following a foul interaction with Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark. \u201cA lot of us, myself included, didn\u2019t even know the play took place until after the game, and now we\u2019re being painted as thugs and there\u2019s death threats out on us, so it\u2019s really unacceptable, it\u2019s something that needs to change in this league, and I\u2019m just really sick and tired of it,\u201d Thomas told reporters.<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cWe still have yet to hear anything from Cathy, it\u2019s no surprise. As usual, she remains silent, and that\u2019s unfortunate when our lives are being threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas isn\u2019t the only player who has spoken about Engelbert\u2019s lack of communication. \u201cMy only relationship with Cathy is when she hands me awards, which is great. I love to see her,\u201d A\u2019ja Wilson joked at All-Star Weekend. The moment was funny, but also illuminating.<\/p>\n

And it would be impossible to forget Napheesa Collier\u2019s blockbuster broadside toward Engelbert<\/a> at the end of the 2025 season. \u201cThis past February, I sat across from [Engelbert] and asked how she planned to address the officiating issues in our league,\u201d Collier told reporters in October. \u201cHer response was, \u2018Well, only the losers complain about the refs.\u2019 I also asked how she planned to fix the fact that players like [Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers], who are clearly driving massive revenue for the league and are making so little for their first four years.<\/p>\n

Dawn Staley and Sarah Kustok speak with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert during the 2022 Commissioner\u2019s Cup championship game in Chicago. Photograph: Jeff Haynes\/NBAE\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHer response was, \u2018[Clark] should be grateful she makes $16m off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn\u2019t make anything.\u2019 And in that same conversation, she told me, \u2018Players should be on their knees, thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Engelbert, in her availability at All-Star, acknowledged she could have done more. Communication is and was \u201cabsolutely something I\u2019ve been talking with the players about, how much they want to hear from us, how much they don\u2019t\u201d, she said. \u201cWe do send them a lot of email updates and things like that. They\u2019re a generation that doesn\u2019t check email as much, so we have to get better at a text chain.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt I need to be better, everybody needs to be better at communication, I think, all the time. So we\u2019ll continue to work on that and communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engelbert also seemed to chalk much of the complaints up to missed signals. \u201cI figure the players don\u2019t want to hear from us all the time, so we\u2019re going to institute more frequent communications with them when it\u2019s appropriate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It was a striking disconnect for a commissioner who oversaw such extraordinary growth. Engelbert helped build a WNBA that was richer, larger and more influential than the one she inherited. Yet as the players themselves became more powerful, the distance between them and the league\u2019s commissioner often appeared to grow along with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert will retire from the role on 31 December, bringing an end to a tenure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-880082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}