Cathy Engelbert Admits WNBA Players Didn't Trust League When She Took Over

Cathy Engelbert said Saturday that players did not trust the WNBA when she took over as commissioner in 2019, and that the distrust is why player first became the first pillar of her strategy.

She spoke at her final WNBA Finals news conference as commissioner, held in San Francisco before the Golden State Valkyries hosted the Atlanta Dream in Game 1 at Chase Center. The league announced Sept. 4 that Engelbert will retire at the end of 2026.

Her strategy rests on three pillars: player first, stakeholder success, and fan engagement and experience.

The league was virtually insolvent when she took over, and it had to grow before it could pay players more, Engelbert said.

"I think the reason when I came in our first pillar was player first is the players didn't trust the league," Engelbert said. "We didn't have charters. They had not great living arrangements and travel arrangements and all the stuff that led to first, the 2020 CBA and then, certainly, the 2026 CBA."

The league became the first women's professional league in the United States to provide charter flights for all games during her tenure.

The 2026 agreement produced the first million-dollar salaries in league history. Engelbert said Saturday the average salary is now more than $580,000.

She had come under significant fire in recent years for her poor relationship with players.

ESPN reported that she faced scrutiny over her handling of multiple issues, and that multiple high-ranking team sources had told the outlet they believed 2026 would likely be her last season.

New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart, vice president of the players' union executive committee, said Sept. 4 that she was happy for Engelbert, ESPN's Alexa Philippou reported.

Engelbert told the AP the decision to leave was hers and that she felt no pressure from NBA or WNBA stakeholders.

Not everyone in a job that size will like her or agree with her strategy, Engelbert said Saturday, pointing to her time running a firm of 100,000 people at Deloitte.

She said she talks with players all the time.

"I think in collective bargaining, yes, there was a lot of contentiousness," Engelbert explained. "But if you talk to a lot of people who do collective bargaining negotiations, they are saying, Cathy, that means you've arrived as a league because if you didn't have that contentiousness, neither side would have felt like they won."

The aim in bargaining was to keep the league growing while paying players significantly more in pay and benefits, by her account. She described the negotiation as very long.

Earlier in the session, Engelbert listed player safety as the No. 1 issue the league is still working through.

"To continue to condemn those that are using behind a keyboard to spew vitriol and hate and racism and misogyny at our players continues to be unacceptable," Engelbert said. "We obviously have worked on kind of the cyber side of that."

"We've worked on the physical security side of that by putting more physical security around our players, in arenas, outside of arenas, as they travel and things like that, which none of that existed a few years ago," Engelbert continued. "We have made those investments. I think the players see the difference in the player experience as well from that perspective."

The players she spoke with after this season's All-Star selections and end-of-season awards were bullish on the league's future, Engelbert said.

Atlanta's Angel Reese sent a warning to the Valkyries this week after Golden State swept the regular-season series 3-0.

Reese won Defensive Player of the Year on Oct. 1 after leading the league with 12.1 rebounds per game.