First in a series
Laurel Richie and Lisa Borders were the league’s first and second ever Black WNBA presidents, but Cathy Engelbert, when she was hired in 2019, became the W’s first-ever commissioner.
Since Engelbert announced that she plans to retire at the end of the year after seven years on the job, several names have surfaced both in traditional media and social media as her possible successor. ESPN last week reported that the hiring process to find Engelbert’s replacement will start later this month. The current commissioner told the Associated Press that she has submitted a list of potential “internal and external candidates” to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, her boss.
Black women make up the majority of the short list of names being discussed as a possible Engelbert successor: Swin Cash, Bethany Donaphin, Nneka Ogwumike and Keia Clarke.
Cash is a WNBA legend, Hall of Famer and former NBA front office executive, and Ogwumike is the current WNBA Players Association head who plans to retire as a player at the end of this season.
Donaphin currently is head of WNBA league operations, and Clarke is New York Liberty CEO. Fellow W legends and Hall of Famers Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker also have been mentioned.
The current major pro sports commissioners, Adam Silver (NBA), Roger Goodell (NFL), Rob Manfred (MLB), Gary Bettman (NHL) and Don Garber (MLS), are all White men who essentially work for the team owners and not the players. Yet these men are widely seen by fans and media as not only the face of their respective leagues but also as CEOs with such powers to set rules and punish players.
All throughout the W’s 30-year history, no matter who was in charge, they only had limited power because the WNBA is majority owned by the NBA, and Silver is the boss.
Will the NBA’s all-White majority ownership group, known as the Board of Governors, allow the next commissioner to be more than a pretty face?
Nonetheless the next WNBA commissioner must be a Black woman.
“I think that there may be a conversation about a new role that facilitates as that bridge between the WNBA and the Players Association that works at the WNBA level,” said Dr. Queenie, an L.A.-based organizational and performance strategist and educational leader.
“I don’t think people realize that when (Engelbert) took the role in 2019, they (the league) didn’t have any capital really that they were working with. I don’t think (the NBA owners) had intentions to really build out the WNBA. Was she a good commissioner? Was she ineffective?”
There’s no denying that Engelbert’s seven-year reign should be duly recognized. She was hired for her business acumen as a former top corporate executive, and the commissioner guided the league through a pandemic, the Wubble and racial upheaval in 2020, and helped negotiate two CBAs and a new long-term media deal. But also not to be overlooked was Engelbert’s strained relationship with the players in recent years, especially after Caitlin Clark’s arrival and the divisiveness and hate spewed against Black players by some of her fans and others ever since.
Two Black sports journalists said in their joint piece in ESPN last week on Engelbert and the search for her successor:
“The health and sustainability of the WNBA is in a far better place than it was six years ago, and should be set up for far more success under the next commissioner,” said Kendra Andrews.
Kareem Copeland added, “Engelbert shouldn’t get credit for all the advances, but she certainly played a significant role.”
The Athletic Senior Columnist Jerry Brewer pointed out that whoever succeeds Engelbert, perhaps the first order of business is repairing the broken bridge with players and seriously addressing the “two audiences with incompatible expectations” surrounding Clark and the rest of the players, which Brewer stressed “didn’t create this fracture, some of that nonsense persists because no one at the top did the work of refereeing the discourse.”
Nonetheless the next W commissioner of America’s longest-running women’s pro basketball league, of which its majority of players are Black women, should be a Black woman. Why not?
Next week: Dr. Queenie’s “Courtside w/Dr. Queenie,” a digital media platform she established on Threads and Instagram. She shares her thoughts on how Black women aren’t given their full recognition.
Finally …
Last weekend began my tenth season of not watching NFL games after Colin Kaepernick was whiteballed after the 2016 season. But we still track “The Shield’s” diversity efforts.
The 2026-27 NFL season has three Black head coaches (Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay; Aaron Glenn, New York Jets; DeMeco Ryans, Houston), four Black team presidents (Sashi Brown, Baltimore; Kevin Warren, Chicago; Damani Leech, Denver; Sandra Douglass Morgan, Las Vegas) and four Black GMs (Ian Cunningham, Atlanta; Andrew Berry, Cleveland; Ryan Poles, Chicago; Brad Holmes, Detroit).
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
Copyright © Charles Hallman