CHICAGO — About halfway through her annual state of the league address ahead of the All-Star Game, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked whether she expected to be in her job at the start of next season. “Obviously, I’m so blessed to be at the helm of this league during this incredible hypergrowth period,” she began. The commissioner went on to compliment the players, note all the new hires at league headquarters and describe how nice it was to see passion for the game in so many young girls. She notably did not say either “yes” or “no.” Engelbert spent two minutes answering the question without giving very much of an answer at all.
It came at the end of a week that neatly demonstrated the core tension here. The WNBA has indeed achieved the hypergrowth referenced by Engelbert. This season has already broken viewership records with months left to play. Yet much of the conversation leading up to All-Star Weekend has focused on a set of controversies ranging in scale and severity—some very much legitimate, others twisted beyond the point of any honest accounting, nearly all of them used as convenient fodder in various online culture wars. (Included in this were questions of player safety, refereeing quality, bizarre media narratives, and what should constitute an official invitation to the league three-point contest.) The collective impression was a familiar one for the WNBA. Here is a league that cannot quite get out of its own way, and here is a commissioner who cannot quite frame the narrative surrounding it, either.
