For these last few years, for the period in which the league has made its greatest gains in popularity, relevance, and quality of play, she was at best a nonfactor and at worst an impediment. The people behind those gains were the players, one in particular, and with the announcement Friday<\/a> that Engelbert, a Collingswood<\/a> native, was \u201cretiring,\u201d the WNBA has a better chance of accelerating its growth and calming the churning waters around it.<\/p>\n No one looks or will look at Engelbert\u2019s tenure atop the WNBA and credit her for the league\u2019s progress, and no one should. The rise of women\u2019s sports in America, particularly of women\u2019s basketball, already was a wind at her back when she became commissioner in 2019.<\/p>\n Title IX<\/a> had been doing its good work on behalf of girls and young women for nearly two generations by then. Because the WNBA, founded in 1996, rarely has players to enter the league after leaving college early, women\u2019s college basketball has been a fertile garden of talent and star power, feeding the league long before Engelbert oversaw it. UConn, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Baylor: These programs and others like them pumped out stars who had spent four years in school setting records and competing in Final Fours, whose names and games had become familiar before they\u2019d ever signed their first professional contracts.<\/p>\n That tide turned into a wave that has crested with Caitlin Clark<\/a>, with the woman who can lay claim to the title of the most popular and important female athlete in the United States. The NBA lifted off in the early 1980s \u2014 once talent poured in after the league merged with the ABA, once Magic Johnson and Larry Bird brought their rivalry to the Lakers and the Celtics \u2014 and the WNBA should be on its way to telling a similar story. It has Clark. It has A\u2019ja Wilson and Paige Bueckers and Olivia Miles and Breanna Stewart<\/a>. It has a depth and breadth of talent unmatched in its history. The games should matter more than they ever have. The games should matter most.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Before she helped negotiate the WNBA\u2019s \u2018life-changing\u2019 CBA, this Philly lawyer hooped at Lower Merion and Penn<\/a><\/p>\n Except \u2026 they don\u2019t. Who wants to hear that story now? Out of Engelbert\u2019s lack of leadership, out of her inability and unwillingness to speak simple truths in plain language or take strong stands to benefit it, the WNBA has morphed into a cudgel in the culture war.<\/p>\n On one side are the sexists and misogynists who don\u2019t watch women\u2019s basketball \u2014 and wouldn\u2019t dare confess to tuning in even if they did \u2014 but whittle away their days complaining about the sport and attacking its athletes on Twitter\/X. On the other are the activist players, coaches, fans and compliant media members so defensive and discomfited over the slightest criticism or question \u2014 about the inevitable byproducts of a major pro sport going mainstream and gaining a new audience \u2014 that they seem to wish that only people like them were permitted to play and watch and cover it.<\/p>\n Mike Sielski alerts<\/p>\n Weekly<\/p>\n Catch Mike Sielski\u2019s sharp takes and in-depth sports analysis, sent straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n Engelbert let those sides squish her like a grape. It was bad enough for the league\u2019s image, for its attempts to shake the perception that it was small-time in its operations and approach, that she botched the pronunciation of Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase\u2019s last name when she presented Nakase (nuh-KAH-say) the WNBA Coach of the Year Award. That it took Clark\u2019s presence and some timely social media posts before Engelbert stopped insisting teams fly commercial and instituted a charter flight program for the league. That her communication skills with the players were so poor that one, Napheesa Collier<\/a>, felt emboldened enough to say that the league \u201chad the worst leadership in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n No, what has been worse is Engelbert\u2019s cowing in the face of obvious problems with obvious solutions. The league should have started hunting for better, more qualified officials years ago, rather than waiting until May to \u2026 form a task force<\/a> about the topic. Engelbert must have been living in a dream world when, according to Collier, she said that Clark and the WNBA\u2019s other stars \u201cshould be on their knees\u201d thanking the league for the prominence it has given them \u2026 when it\u2019s actually the other way around. <\/p>\n But it\u2019s the latest and silliest controversy \u2014 over the league\u2019s policy, or lack thereof, on transgender athletes \u2014 that brought Engelbert\u2019s weakness most clearly to bear.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: A.J. Brown and the Patriots vs. Jalen Hurts and the Eagles is the perfect rivalry for our hot-take age | Mike Sielski<\/a><\/p>\n Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom are clowns for their publicity campaign to declare themselves to be women so they can join the league. A commissioner with any spine would have swatted them away like gnats simply by pointing out what everyone can already see: Royce, you\u2019re 6-foot-8. Enes, you\u2019re 6-10. You guys played in the NBA! Do you have any idea how pathetic you are for begging to be in our league? <\/p>\n A commissioner with any spine would have pointed out that FIBA<\/a>, the IOC<\/a>, and the USOPC<\/a> already have policies that only biological females can compete in women\u2019s sports, that the WNBA\u2019s players follow those guidelines when they compete internationally \u2014 as they are right now, in the FIBA World Cup<\/a> \u2014 and that the league\u2019s policy reflects those policies. Instead, Engelbert has stayed silent, allowing the issue to fester, allowing this sideshow to dominate conversation about the sport.<\/p>\n![\"Inquirer](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788553335_571_I_circle_black.png\")
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