WNBA commissioner plays gender card when asked about future

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has been under the spotlight for about a year as she navigated the league through a stressful collective bargaining agreement before the start of the 2026 season.

Engelbert addressed the media Monday night as the WNBA Draft was set to take place. She raised eyebrows among reporters and fans on social media with a response to a tough question she received.

She was asked about her future as commissioner and responded by playing the gender card.

“I do crack up how everybody’s focused on me, and you should be focused on the hundreds of amazing women and thousands of women who run this league outside of myself,” she said, via USA Today. “I appreciate that you’re focused on me as well. I wonder if you would ask that of a man, by the way, but I realize as women we get asked different questions than men do.”

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Some social media users, including columnist Jemele Hill, agreed that she would have gotten the same question if she were a man.

Engelbert is in an exclusive club of female commissioners of professional sports. Jessica Berman is the commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League. Meanwhile, commissioners in every other league face tough questions during their own press conferences in key points of the year.

But Engelbert received the brunt of the criticism going into CBA negotiations. The players called on the league to pay its players more in a demonstration during the WNBA All-Star Game.

Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier blasted WNBA as having the “worst leadership” at the end of the 2025 season.

Still, Engelbert is still the commissioner of the WNBA through the latest CBA. She added Monday night that the CBA still needs to be finalized.

She also said the league was looking ahead to the future and hoped the league would be able to take the WNBA overseas whether it’s a regular-season or exhibition game.

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“We’re heavily looking at that,” Engelbert said. “Obviously this year we have the FIBA World Cup. Next year we expect that we’ll do something outside of North America as a true global game.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.