The WNBA now uses full-time charter flights for all its players. That was not always the case. And according to Caitlin Clark biographer Christine Brennan, when she raised questions about the situation at the time, the response she received was a flat and unambiguous no. The reason given was simple: there was not enough money to make chartered flights possible.

Speaking on Monday’s episode of the Linda Cohn Show, Brennan revealed the reason Cathy Engelbert eventually reversed course and agreed to charter flights had to do with Caitlin Clark. However, for Brennan, the fact that the decision was not made far sooner reflected a lapse of leadership from the commissioner. 

“Charter flights happened for one reason: because of Caitlin Clark and their concern over her security when she was photographed and videotaped walking through Dallas Fort Worth baggage claim. I was told there will be no charter flights. No charter flights.”

“They will still fly commercial, which meant, of course, you’re jamming 6’9″ Brittney Griner into a commercial flight. Horrible that they didn’t get charter flights after she got back from Russia. Horrible decision by Cathy Engelbert. Absolutely. Just a vacuum of leadership, sad to say, from her.”

The Clark incident Brennan referenced occurred in 2024, Clark’s first WNBA season. Video footage of Clark and her Indiana Fever teammates walking through the baggage claim area at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport went viral, showing the players navigating the public terminal with seemingly minimal security while being filmed by media and onlookers. The contrast between Clark’s celebrity profile and the vulnerability of the setting was stark and impossible to ignore.

And as Brennan noted, it did not go unnoticed. The Clark airport video outraged fans and media analysts across the league, many of whom used it to argue that Clark’s immense and rapidly growing public profile had created an immediate and concrete safety risk, and that the WNBA had a responsibility to mandate private charter travel to protect its players.

But as Brennan also pointed out, there was an even more obvious and more alarming precedent that should have triggered the charter flight decision well before Clark ever stepped on an NBA court. In June 2023, following Brittney Griner’s high-profile release from a Russian prison in a prisoner swap, she and her Phoenix Mercury teammates were walking through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport when they had to face heckling.

It was a deeply disturbing and politically charged incident involving one of the most recognizable athletes in women’s basketball. Yet even after that, there would be some time before chartered flights became a thing.

Instead, the leadership offered Griner a limited “hybrid” arrangement allowing her to fly private on her own, an offer Griner initially resisted precisely because she did not want to be separated from her teammates.

For Brennan, that choice, or rather, that refusal, encapsulated everything she found wanting in Engelbert’s leadership. 

“But that Griner thing, you’ve got to have charter flights once you’ve got Brittney Griner and other players who could be attacked, as Brittney Griner was at the same airport, Dallas-Fort Worth.”

The full-time charter flight program was, however, eventually implemented for all WNBA teams in May 2024. And as Brennan and many others had argued it would, it has since addressed security and logistical concerns that should never have been allowed to linger as long as they did.

The decision to delay that implementation will likely stand as one of the less defensible aspects of Cathy Engelbert’s tenure, which officially ends in December. However, while examples of seemingly questionable leadership like this one may be part of how she is remembered, there are definitely other, more positive sides to her legacy.

Notably, under her leadership, the WNBA witnessed its biggest financial and economic growth yet, as well as the biggest CBA in the league’s history. While Engelbert has faced criticism, especially in the last two years, the WNBA has also reached new heights during her tenure.