For about 44 awkward seconds in a nightclub, Cathy Engelbert was indeed the beloved commissioner of the WNBA.
The setting: All-Star Weekend 2025 in downtown Indianapolis. The vibe: mixed drinks and bad decisions. Moment: Engelbert and a pair of pink players, Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman, broadcast their ‘StudBudz’ shenanigans non-stop.
With a camera and a DJ playing the party anthem “Knuck If You Buck,” Engelbert greets the players, tells them they’re “amazing” and raises both hands in a way that someone who’s never punched in their life would try to punch.
Then, the commissioner starts dancing.
Alas, the next woman to become WNBA commissioner — and it will be a woman — will have to continue this delicate dance.
WNBA COMMISSIONER CATHY ENGELBERT DANCE TO “KNUCK IF YOU BUCK” BY CRIME MOB????????
STUDBUDGE GONE TOO FAR, BRUH 😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/pWbEwMwvcj
— zavanté is temporarily patriotic 🇺🇸💫 (@zavanchy) July 19, 2025
Now that Engelbert announced her decision to retire at the end of this season he leaves with a long list of business victories and strained relationships. So the next commissioner chosen to lead this league, she would be better off being a separate boss. One who can demonstrate business competence and still communicate like a regular person. One that can anticipate external disturbances while empathizing with the targeted workforce within the storm. Above all, she would do well to realize that the WNBA has not reached the goal of being financially solvent while still viewing the players as more than just part of a money machine.
Since she’s going to be the woman needed for all this hard work, she’d better accept the unfairness of it all.
The world being what it is, the standard for female CEOs will always be higher and more personal than that of their male counterparts. She has to be approachable in the hallways, yet have a bit of callousness in the boardroom. Her personality has to command respect, but she still has to be, you know, boss with Rizzo. She should be prepared to be condemned as a tyrant for making the same tough decisions as a man, as researchers discovered in 2016 in coverage of then-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer compared to Jack Dorsey, the guy who let Twitter go to hell.
Now, let’s get this straight: bad bosses are bad bosses, regardless of gender. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres lost her popular talk show for creating a toxic work environment. Former Vice President Kamala Harris ran through the staff as if she hosted a version of the “Squid Game” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson was tense tons of civil lawsuits from his previous day as a licensed interior designer. So to ignore the missteps Engelbert made, or to shield any woman in a leadership position from legitimate criticism, would be antithetical to gender equality. That would be a condescending and distorted version of “women helping women”.
However, even with that recognition, there is still truth to the way women leaders must walk a fine line between using their power without being labeled a whore. Mary Ann Sieghart, author of The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men and What We Can Do About It during a panel last year that “women are 10 times more likely to be described as abrasive than men, while men are three to four times more likely to be described as confident than women”.
Engelbert’s problem wasn’t that she was so rude. She just lacked emotional equality with the players. She was throwing out word salads as a message, and she didn’t seem to care. Also, it must be noted: most of Engelbert’s critics were women.
At the end of last season, Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier set the league on fire by saying the WNBA has “the worst leadership in the world.” Collier also stated that Engelbert told her that Caitlin Clark and other young stars “should be on their knees,” grateful for the platform provided by the WNBA. A good boss would look at it the other way around, if the league was supposed to be kneeling and crawling in gratitude for crossover stars and their impact on the bottom line.
The woman who will replace Engelbert should learn from her mistakes.
Cathy Engelbert announces her retirement
Annie Costabile
then again who really wants to be commissioner of the WNBA? It feels like an impossible job. For example: Is the position better suited for a figurehead or an independent executive? The crowning achievement of Engelbert’s seven-plus years has to be the media rights deal the league secured under her stewardship. The deal is now worth more than $3 billion, yet it was reported that her boss, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, negotiated that payday — not her.
The job seems even less desirable because the WNBA attracts crazies and mayhem more than any other professional sports league. Maybe there’s a tracker in the league office that reads, “Zero days since the last political firestorm.” If so, then just wait, because surely some Republican lawmaker is ready to write the next letter to the commissioner complaining about the “racially motivated” attacks on Clark.
Now it’s just a typical Friday night at the W when former NBA player Royce White shows up to an Indiana Fever game — wearing a long blonde wig — as part of his trolling to get drafted into the league as a “black trans lesbian.” As silly as White and Enes Kanter Freedom look during their cosplay as patrons of women’s sportsthe league still had to admit their stupidity and respond that neither of them was eligible for the WNBA draft. At the very least, W can ban those morons, but there is no way to root out the anonymous social media hate mongers who direct racial and homophobic abuse at players.
Whew. Bless the brave woman who wants to inherit this burden.
For one memorable night in Indy, however, Engelbert must have loved being the commissioner.
While she was playing, the players were swooning and cheering her on. “Look at Kathy!” Williams screamed and Engelbert danced harder. She started spinning. The crowd stopped and stared. More phones popped out to document this monumental scene when the chorus stopped and Engelbert instantly turned into an aunt.
In those moments, Engelbert was not the worst enemy of the players in the labor struggle, nor the easiest target for the public’s jeers and ridicule. Instead, in that short clip, she was relaxed, fun, just one of the girls. For perhaps the only time in her tumultuous years as league commissioner, Cathy Engelbert was close.
Quite a sobering commentary on society, but the next WNBA commissioner needs to understand the act that’s being pushed to be in charge while fighting the perception that she’s not hot enough. It’s unfair, but it’s a dance that women leaders have been dancing since the beginning of time.
