{"id":229015,"date":"2025-10-21T09:31:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/229015\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T09:31:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:31:26","slug":"wnba-owners-execs-join-growing-criticism-of-commissioner-cathy-engelberts-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/229015\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA owners, execs join growing criticism of Commissioner Cathy Engelbert\u2019s tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Multiple WNBA owners said that they are \u201cunhappy\u201d with Commissioner Cathy Engelbert\u2019s leadership in a new survey of league leaders, according to ESPN.com<\/a>. One owner said, \u201cIf I had a vote, I would probably ask for a replacement.\u201d However, it \u201cseems unlikely\u201d that any major leadership change will \u201chappen while CBA negotiations continue.\u201d Another owner said, \u201cIf you fire her now, it\u2019s admitting weakness.\u201d <\/p>\n

Frustration with Engelbert \u201cspans several\u201d areas: issues are \u201cfrequently left unresolved;\u201d some of Engelbert\u2019s business decisions \u201cmight have complicated the WNBA\u2019s ownership structure and hamstrung the league from growing even more;\u201d and Engelbert\u2019s interactions and communications \u201cwith others.\u201d League sources widely agree that Engelbert \u201cmust rebuild relationships\u201d and \u201cestablish trust with players.\u201d The CBA negotiations \u201coffer Engelbert a last chance\u201d to \u201csalvage her role.\u201d <\/p>\n

Players, coaches and execs across the WNBA also have \u201cflagged a lack of consistency\u201d by referees as well as the level of physicality. A team exec said that those are \u201cvalid concerns, but some of the issues have deeper roots.\u201d They said their first issue with officiating is that \u201cit\u2019s not resourced from the arenas we play in, to not having a replay center.\u201d The exec pointed to the Dallas, Connecticut, Chicago and Atlanta arenas \u201cas problems,\u201d as those courts do not \u201chave the same technology and camera angles that other markets have that are viewed as crucial for calling a game correctly.\u201d The team exec also said that there \u201cneeds to be a Last Two Minute report\u201d (ESPN.com, 10\/17<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Multiple WNBA owners said that they are \u201cunhappy\u201d with Commissioner Cathy Engelbert\u2019s leadership in a new survey of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,139,82,630,4143],"class_list":["post-229015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-leadership","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}