In recent weeks, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has come under increasing criticism, particularly for how the league has treated arguably its most prized asset, Caitlin Clark. Dave Portnoy was not mincing any words in his reaction when he learned that Engelbert had recently canceled an interview with Dan Patrick, allegedly because it involved answering some difficult questions.
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“You’re the commissioner of the WNBA. What do you mean your PR people won’t let you go on?,” Portnoy said in his podcast on July 13. “It’s your decision. You’re their boss. Of course, you can overrule.
“She’s a total coward, and she has mismanaged this league from the word go, the second Caitlin Clark got in here. They haven’t known how to handle it. She doesn’t know how to answer questions. The controversy doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Caitlin not playing doesn’t seem to be killing the ratings unless I’m wrong about it, but it is a shame.”
Engelbert was scheduled to appear in an interview with Dan Patrick at the American Century Championship, a premier golf event in Tahoe. But she supposedly cancelled at the last moment after making them wait because her PR team did not believe it was in her image’s best interest to answer the tough questions Patrick might ask. The decision, however, was based on everything that has been going on in the league.
The league and Engelbert were criticized when they handed out just a one-game suspension and a $ 1,000 fine to Alyssa Thomas after her flagrant foul on Caitlin Clark.
The situation has escalated to the point where even members of the US Congress have written to Engelbert to install safeguards to protect Clark from the excessive physicality she receives, compared to that of any other player in the league.
The stats do seem to suggest that Clark and Co. have struggled with foul calls this season. Not just this season, if you remember 2024, 17% of the league’s total flagrant fouls were on Clark. Since a major chunk of Indiana’s offense runs through Clark, she consistently finds herself in such positions.
Portnoy and others have regularly echoed the fact that Clark has had a phenomenal impact on the league’s commercial success in recent years. The ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ is ever-present and continues to expand. Fever is the only team to have all its 44 games on national TV, regularly amassing a million-plus views on average.
With Clark emerging as a global icon for W, the league remains under heavy scrutiny for their decisons when it comes to Clark. For now, fans will be eager to see Clark in the upcoming All-Star Game in Chicago, putting off-court controversies aside.