Reprehensible as her comments to Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier were, they aren’t what’s going to cost Cathy Engelbert her job as WNBA commissioner.
A commissioner’s main responsibility is to handle the messy stuff so owners don’t have to, and make sure the money keeps rolling in. Why do you think NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has lasted for as long as he has? It’s not because of his wit and charm.
Engelbert, however, has done the exact opposite. She’s created multiple messes herself and, in the process, alienated the players. That ineptitude is likely going to cause a labor stoppage right as the WNBA is taking off, putting a clamp on the profit spigot.
How are owners, many of whom have spent multiple millions keeping their teams and the league afloat, going to react when their long-awaited payday is delayed because Engelbert is incapable of reading a room? How are the folks who just spent $250 million each for expansion franchises going to feel when the league’s growth stagnates because Engelbert underestimated the savvy and resolve of the players?
What will NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who shares responsibility for this dumpster fire, think when he’s watching a rival league thrive while the WNBA is still trying to get out of its own way?
“We have the best players in the world, we have the best fans in the world, but right now we have the worst leadership in the world,’ Collier said in a prepared statement on Tuesday.
‘The real threat to our league isn’t money, it isn’t ratings or even missed calls or even physical play. It’s the lack of accountability from the league office.’
Collier made it clear her teardown of Engelbert wasn’t sour grapes because the top-seeded Lynx lost in the semifinals or even because she got hurt in Game 3 on Friday night. She and other WNBA players have been keeping receipts for months — years, really — and with the current collective bargaining agreement expiring at the end of the month, it’s time to bring them.
There is Engelbert’s tone-deafness on the racism and misogyny that underpins the “rivalry” between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and the toxicity its’s spread to the entire league. There is Engelbert and the league being woefully unprepared for the arrival of Clark, Reese and Paige Bueckers, players who were already multimillionaires and household names when they were still in college.
There’s Engelbert’s complete indifference to the game’s growing physicality and the trash officiating that enables it. Her incomprehension of the players’ value and their role in the skyrocketing interest in the league. Her ham-handed handling of the sale of the Connecticut Sun.
And while Engelbert’s choice to wear a New York City-themed dress to last year’s deciding Game 5 of the WNBA Finals, when the New York Liberty were one of the teams playing in those Finals, might seem like a minor faux pas, it just spotlights how out of touch she is.
“I have tried to have these conversations in private, but it’s clear there is no intention of accepting there’s a problem,’ Collier said. ‘The league has made it clear it isn’t about innovation, it isn’t about collaboration. It’s about control and power.’
But Engelbert, and Silver, are making a gross miscalculation.
Business professors could devote an entire semester to the leagues and organizations that paid a price for underestimating women athletes.
The NCAA is still being, rightfully, scorned for short-changing the women’s basketball tournament. U.S. Soccer’s then-president was forced to resign after the federation thought belittling the four-time World Cup champions was a good way to resolve an equal pay lawsuit by the U.S. women’s national team. The PWHL exists while several other professional hockey leagues are in the dust bin of history because the best women’s players refused to accept substandard conditions.
I could go on.
The point is, Collier and other WNBA players not only know their value, they know how to protect it. Engelbert, and Silver, don’t seem to recognize the days of women being grateful for anything, let alone the respect and compensation they have earned, are over.
The sponsors, the merch deals, even the fat new media rights deals — those didn’t come about because Engelbert is a terrific commissioner or a savvy dealmaker. (That $200 million a year the league will get beginning next season already looks like a steal.) The league is now a goldmine because of its players, a fact underscored by the wild success of Unrivaled, the offseason 3-on-3 league Collier co-founded with Breanna Stewart.
A league that’s already expanding in Year 2, I might add.
“I’m very appreciative that we have people like Phee in our players association representing us, because that’s what we’re going to have to continue to make the push to stand on what we believe in,” four-time MVP A’ja Wilson said Tuesday night. “I’m grateful to have those types of people be able to continue to speak up for us.
“I’m gonna ride with Phee always. … We gotta continue to stand on business.’
Owners, in the WNBA or any other league, don’t much care who their commissioner is. They care about their bank accounts and Engelbert’s actions aren’t helping grow them. Out of all her missteps, that’s the one that will cost her.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.