The WNBA is preparing to turn the page this coming offseason, and Sophie Cunningham already knows what she wants the next chapter to look like. With current commissioner Cathy Engelbert set to retire at the end of the season, the Indiana Fever star believes the league doesn’t just need a business leader.
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Cunningham recently made an appearance on the Colin Cowheard Podcast, where the namesake host asked her about the criticism Engelbert has faced during her tenure. While the guard admitted that the job is not easy, she made it clear that she has high hopes for Engelbert’s successor.
“You need someone who has a backbone, who is bold, who is courageous, who is going to try to unify,” Cunningham said on the podcast.
“We want a commissioner who wants to engage in our players. If we were in a room and she walked in, she wouldn’t even say hi to us. She would just go do her own thing. It’s like, this is a players league. So have a relationship with your players, be in communication… I think is we want a commissioner who is going to fight for us, who’s going to have a relationship with us, who is going to listen to us so we can work and work together. And I just don’t think that we had that relationship whatsoever with Cathy.”
Her comments come at an interesting time for the WNBA. Engelbert, who has been the league’s commissioner since 2019, is stepping down during a period of record-breaking growth for the league. In recent months, that spotlight has also been fueled by various controversies, including the debate on transgender athletes in women’s sports sparked by Cunningham’s comments in an ESPN profile released on July 21.
Cunningham did make it clear that Engelbert did have her positives, especially as a business leader who helped the WNBA get to where it is now. Engelbert has been a driving force when it comes to merchandise sales and corporate partnerships, leading the $75 million capital raise in 2022, the largest investment round in women’s sports history. However, Cunningham also made it clear that the unprecedented growth might not have been something the commissioner was prepared for.
“I think when she first came in the league, she was doing an okay job,” she said. “She made some good business decisions for us. But once we exploded, I just don’t think that she was ready for it.”
When it comes to Engelbert’s successor, according to a report from ESPN, a search is already on the way. The commissioner has told the Associated Press that she has been working on a “succession plan for years,” and that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has already been sent a list of potential candidates.
In that same report, an anonymous source said that the league was not just looking at traditional figures to lead their next chapter, especially since the league is “now at a point where a leader without a traditional background in the corporate world might offer advantages.”
This is not Cunningham’s first time over the last week criticizing Engelbert either. During the first episode of her new podcast, No Hesitation, she told co-host Drew Hanlan that her experience with Engelbert had been “awkward.”
“I think, under previous people who are leading like, we would be in the same room with each other – say you’re the commissioner, we wouldn’t even say hi, and there would only be like five people in the room. Like, is that not weird or awkward? Just be friendly, just be a human, like whatever,” she said.
For Cunningham, a dependable relationship was missing during Engelbert’s time at the helm, and with the search for a successor already underway, her message is clear: the next leader of the WNBA cannot be business-first, but instead find ways to connect with the players who are turning it into one of the fastest-growing leagues in America.