Cathy Engelbert was a good trustee for someone who used to run an accounting firm. This is not small. No need to wait while the laughter takes its course.
The former Deloitte executive kept the WNBA afloat during the pandemic, secured a seismological media rights deal, charted a course for the league’s expansion and toasted a landmark collective bargaining agreement just months ago. She did the numbers well.
Now the league needs a leader who does everything spectacularly. When Engelbert she announced her intention to retire on Friday morningit created an opportunity as massive as the trepidation that inevitably comes with it. The WNBA can’t miss here. There can be no backsliding on the business side as the league enters its next 30 years, but there must be a huge presence in the chair with relentless ambition at every stage of the business.
What does a visionary WNBA commissioner look like? Well, it’s hard to say, because being a visionary means seeing things the rest of us don’t.
But start by being present and taking into account much more than the previous one, and creating a connection with the players who seem to crave it more than most pro athletes, and earn the confidence that makes the inevitable tough decisions more digestible, and clench their fists to stand up to cynics and bad actors, all the while continuing to rake in more and more money while the world watches.
And even that might not cover the entire punch list.
The game deserved that type of leadership – a tone setter instead of a gatekeeper.
Imagine a proactive, authoritative voice confronting the wide and varied controversies the WNBA has faced this summer. Issuing the occasional milquetoast press statement? It’s about trying to win a pool noodle sword fight. Consider instead bringing some charismatic intellect into waste. Imagine having the freedom to call right clown clownand the capital a leader earns with his constituents, not to mention the people who buy tickets to actually watch basketball.
Who is responsible for the WNBA PR problem?
That’s the kind of influence that would be useful in building a relationship with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who, given the shared ownership of franchises in both leagues, inevitably looms in the background while creating a credible space between one operation and the other.
While we’re on the subject: that power goes both ways. Engelbert’s successor may not be the players’ new best friend, and WNBA players would do well to realize that.
It’s more than fair to ask for a commissioner who is generally accessible and genuinely listens to their concerns, especially in a league half the size of most American men’s professional associations. But the sports leader has more important things to do than send birthday cards. If the WNBA is to become a global phenomenon — to the benefit of every player in it — there will be many times when there will be no time to talk. And that will have to be okay.
(One semi-visionary concept: The new commissioner hires a player for relationship experience. Someone who’s constantly checking in with the league, who is known to have a direct line to the top of the organizational chart. If the commissioner can’t be everything to everyone, creating that role is at least a good-faith effort.)
Credit to Engelbert for some self-awareness, probably, that the WNBA was getting too big for her. And given the unbearable noise that has plagued the sport over the past few months, it’s hard to blame her for letting someone else handle it all. She does everyone a favor, including herself. Her resignation creates a turning point at the best possible time.
By sheer coincidence, this assessment of a defining moment in the WNBA timeline is written with an eye on the Toronto skyline as the sun sets on one of the newest cities to call the league home. Tempo is the first franchise outside of the United States as the league begins a comprehensive international reach. The look is a broad reflection of what the WNBA wants to be.
Engelbert was the commissioner when the Toronto Tempo entered the league. She was on hand when the team played its inaugural game in early May. She was in charge of Goliath’s accounting firm before taking a job running a professional basketball league, and then that new job turned into something else entirely, and she took it as hard as she could.
This is a transformative time for the WNBA. And the WNBA must now make a transformative choice and identify a person who sees it all through and beyond.