WNBA commissioner outlines transformative plan to pivot league from ‘survive to thrive’

DIANA TAURASI SPREAD her arms wide and turned toward the crowd. The WNBA superstar had just scored a playoff career-high 37 points while playing on a bum ankle. She was trending on social media. At 39 years old, Taurasi gifted the fans a vintage-style performance against the Las Vegas Aces. Taurasi’s Phoenix Mercury were headed home, tied 1-1 in the semifinal series.

Problem was, the game wouldn’t take place at the Mercury’s home arena. “Disney On Ice” had been previously scheduled at the Footprint Center on the same night as the WNBA playoff game, so the Mercury were banished to a slightly smaller arena at Arizona State.

The juxtaposition — a thrilling sports moment followed by another perceived affront to the league and its fans — was a stark reminder of the WNBA’s fight to carve out space in the sports landscape 25 years after its founding. While some stars are household names and the league enjoys both a business partner in the NBA and media partners that provide it national and regular exposure, the challenges run deep. The WNBA has struggled to increase franchise values, attendance is lagging and media rights fees have not increased exponentially like in other leagues. Its issues go beyond the bottom line too; the vast majority of its players excel in relative anonymity after they leave college.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert isn’t shying away from any of it. Instead, she’s taking aim at what she calls a broken sports ecosystem that has historically and dramatically undervalued women’s sports.

“It’s a male model discounted by 80 to 90%,” she said.

In a 90-minute interview, Engelbert, the former CEO of Deloitte who accepted the WNBA’s top job as her “second act” in 2019, said she can fix it.

Instead of tinkering around the edges, Engelbert is focused on the fundamental question of equity.

She has a five-year plan that includes assembling a consortium of powerful stakeholders who want to persuade corporate America that the WNBA is more than the NBA’s “little…