In the archives of professional sports, May 2005 stands as a definitive moment for representation and leadership. At the MCI Center, Sheila Johnson made history by becoming the first Black woman to own a WNBA team, leading an ownership group to purchase the Washington Mystics. For Women\u2019s History Month, her story serves as a reminder of what it looks like to claim a seat at a table that was never originally built for you.<\/p>\n
Johnson, the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET), joined Lincoln Holdings LLC to acquire the Mystics from Abe Pollin\u2019s Washington Sports & Entertainment. While her business acumen was already legendary, this move into the WNBA was personal. Pollin specifically sought Johnson out for the role, believing the time had come for a Black woman to manage a team in a league where the players and fans were predominantly Black women.<\/p>\n
As president and managing partner, Johnson represented the team on the WNBA Board of Governors. Her presence challenged the traditional “boys’ club” of sports ownership and signaled a new era for women in the executive suite.<\/p>\n
Her tenure with the Mystics was only the beginning. Today, Johnson is the Vice Chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, holding the distinction of being the only Black woman with principal shareholder stakes in three professional leagues: the Mystics, the NBA\u2019s Washington Wizards, and the NHL\u2019s Washington Capitals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the archives of professional sports, May 2005 stands as a definitive moment for representation and leadership. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-535115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535115","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=535115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}