{"id":307618,"date":"2025-11-22T19:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/307618\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T19:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:37:07","slug":"storm-guard-issues-blunt-reminder-of-who-is-really-responsible-for-many-wnba-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/307618\/","title":{"rendered":"Storm guard issues blunt reminder of who is really responsible for many WNBA issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a rough few months for Cathy Engelbert. Despite the WNBA\u2019s unprecedented growth and popularity, Engelbert\u2019s time as the league\u2019s commissioner seems to be comingw to an end<\/a>. In a fiery exit interview speech, Napheesa Collier called WNBA leadership the \u201cworst leadership in the world\u201d and accused Engelbert of dismissing players\u2019 concerns about officiating, salaries, and many other issues, as well as taking credit for Caitlin Clark\u2019s off-court success and saying that players should be thanking her for everything she did. Those comments weren\u2019t well received, and Engelbert\u2019s response did little to bridge the gap between her and the players. A new CBA could very well mean a new commissioner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Cathy Engelbert isn\u2019t the only one to blame for the many issues that have been plaguing the WNBA for so long. Engelbert is the face of the WNBA as a business, but she does not have free rein. The NBA still owns 42% of the league<\/a>, and many NBA owners also own WNBA teams on top of that. Engelbert still has to report to NBA leadership and owners, and many of the issues that plague the WNBA have existed for much longer than Engelbert has been commissioner. Much of what the players are fighting for in the current CBA is a result of years of neglect and poor investments from owners. <\/p>\n

When Lexie Brown, a WNBPA player representative for the Storm, appeared on Good Follow with Ros Gold-Onwude, she made sure to remind everyone that Engelbert doesn\u2019t deserve to shoulder all the blame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, the league explodes and now everyone wants their money, their return on investment, but y\u2019all weren\u2019t investing in us for real. It was just a tax write off to some of you\u2026Our Seattle owners, the New York owners, the Vegas owners, they are the first ones that really put the money where their mouths were, and everybody has to follow suit,\u201d Brown said<\/a>. \u201cI feel like people have been really hard on Cathy [Engelbert]\u2014as they should be\u2014but she works for the owners. Everyone needs to be looking at the owners and [ask], \u2018What are y\u2019all talking about in these meetings? Who\u2019s for the players and who\u2019s for themselves?\u2019 That\u2019s the questions that need to be asked. It\u2019s not all on Cathy. She\u2019s just the face of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lack of investment has been an issue in the WNBA for a long time<\/p>\n

For the longest time, the WNBA was viewed as a little sister league to the NBA or even a charity case. Players were supposed to simply be grateful that they had a league to play in. That attitude was reflected in many owners\u2019 willingness to invest in their teams. Until recently, most of them got by with doing the bare minimum, and few people outside the players blamed them. Teams didn\u2019t have dedicated practice facilities, appropriate training staff or equipment, or access to charter flights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lot of that changed a few years ago. The Las Vegas Aces opened the first state-of-the-art practice facility built solely for a WNBA team in 2023. Aces players have often cited those facilities as one of the many reasons for the team\u2019s success. Other owners have since followed suit, building great, dedicated facilities in Seattle, Phoenix, and Oakland. Other teams, like the Wings, Sparks, Sky, Liberty, and Fever are planning or building practice facilities at the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The WNBA has moved past the time when it was acceptable for owners not to invest in their players and everyone will have to put in the work to catch up with the franchises leading the charge. To accomplish that, owners and NBA leadership will have to continually be held accountable.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a rough few months for Cathy Engelbert. Despite the WNBA\u2019s unprecedented growth and popularity, Engelbert\u2019s time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-307618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}