The questions surrounding Cathy Engelbert’s future have been answered.
The WNBA commissioner will retire at the end of the season, she said Friday in a statement. The 61-year-old New Jersey native has been in the role for seven years.
“Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women’s sports,” Engelbert said. “I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined. I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA team owners and staff, players, investors, fans and the powerhouse league office staff, who believed in what this league could become.”
In her seven years as commissioner, Engelbert oversaw unprecedented growth for the WNBA — including an expansion from 12 to 15 teams, with plans to reach 18 by 2030. In 2024, she helped secure a media rights deal for 11 years and worth $3.1 billion. She also raised $75 million in capital for the league in 2022.
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But for all of her business acumen, Engelbert was frequently scrutinized for her handling of the more outward-facing elements her job required. This included the criticism that she was unable to develop meaningful relationships with the league’s best players, which reached its apex last fall when Lynx star Napheesa Collier called the WNBA’s leadership the “worst in the world” in a damning news conference.
Collier’s comments came before the league and its union negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement that was finalized in May and lasts until 2032. But even though the new CBA brought player salaries over $1 million for the first time in the WNBA’s 30-year history, it did little to quiet speculation about Engelbert’s job security, about which NBA commissioner Adam Silver was publicly noncommittal.
Engelbert has also drawn scrutiny for her handling of player discipline — including the suspension of Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas for a hard foul of Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark, which reportedly required Silver to intervene — and for the league’s inability to disentangle from culture-war issues that have often risked overshadowing the on-court product.
“Cathy has presided over the WNBA through the most significant period of growth in the league’s 30-year history,” Silver said in a statement Friday. “We are grateful for Cathy’s leadership and unwavering commitment to the advancement of women’s basketball.”
Engelbert was named the league’s commissioner in May 2019. She played college basketball at Lehigh in the late 1980s for Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw, and spent 33 years working for Deloitte, where she became the company’s first female CEO in 2015.
“I retire with immense gratitude and tremendous optimism for the future of the WNBA, with the best yet to come,” Engelbert said in her statement.
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