RIP the Cathy Era. What's Next for the W?

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Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. Welcome to the Ringer WNBA show. We have an emergency podcast for you. I am joined by Andrew Hobner of No Cap Space, who is the only person in the world that I would want to be joining me on this auspicious, historical morning. Kathy Engelbert, the commissioner of the WNBA, is announcing her retirement. The WNBA has put out a statement. She has already sat down for an interview with Howard Magdal, which I'm sure we will get into. But Andrew, just off the top, what's your initial reaction to all this? It's so Kathy Engelbert, man. Does all of the technical components of this right, right? It's Labor Day weekend. So everyone's going to be out of the house doing things. College football is center stage. Everyone in media knows the Friday news dump is when you put out the biggest thing that you don't want to get caught up in a news cycle. So you put it out on a Friday and you just kind of let it float somewhere else. So she got that element right. But they decide to drop it right as Team USA and Kaitlyn Glark makes her FIBA World Cup debut. And everybody is talking about women's basketball. So it's not a news dump. You basically took all of the attention that was sitting there and put it squarely back on you. And so it's just a perfect encapsulation of Kathy Engelbert's tenure is like sticks the landing on literally all of the logistical components that are required and then. Completely steps on a rake at the very end. You could have put this out in like six hours, mind you, when college football really gets going and no one would have blinked. And it's just there's just a funny element to like the actual timing and decision making of it. As far as my reaction to it. Yeah, well, I think I think she was specifically trying to spite me. I think she was specifically trying to spite me. I think she wanted to draw attention away from my interview. But I think that she I think that it was going to leak. I think that it was going to leak. And she wanted to get out ahead of it. And I think she was trying to save face. I think she wants to act like this entire thing is happening on her own terms that she's retiring because she doesn't want to do the job anymore. Whereas it has been an open secret for basically a year and a half that Kathy Engelbert's tenure is not going to be long for this world. I'm actually surprised. Frankly, if the CBA didn't take as long as it did to happen and we didn't have to, you know, speed run towards the season, this would have happened a couple of months ago. We would have been entering this WNBA season. With a new commissioner as well. So it's very, it's very classic, Kathy. It is. And it's the crazy thing about it is that I think as we start to get into what Kathy Engelbert actually was, as WNBA commissioner, we're going to find a lot of weird complexity and middle ground to it. Because ultimately, right, her job was to come in, you know, formerly as the first female CEO of a big four accounting firm as the CEO of Deloitte, her mandate coming in was to get this league right financially. And if you just look at the pure numbers, she did that. You can make an argument about whether or not that was anything that she proactively did versus her just riding the wave of a golden generation of players that took this sport into a different level. But I said this on my reaction video on our No Caps Based WBB YouTube page. Look, man, people get the idea. People get the idea. People get the keys to Ferraris and crash them all the time, you know? And I don't think we need to like do this massive hagiography for the fact that she didn't crash the car. But I think that when you look at the gargantuan effort that it takes, and I feel this way running a media outlet and having to solicit sponsors and partners in women's basketball, even at this point where we're going through meteoric growth in the sport. In 2019, when she first got here, you're not only fighting having to promise. Corporate sponsors that they're going to see some type of return on investment in the coming years, you also are battling their own preconceived notions about women's basketball in general. And so she won in that respect. She won the battle in the boardroom. The problem with Kathy Engelbert is at no point has she ever won the battle in the public sphere. And I think at this point, we're getting to the person leading this league has to understand how to win a PR battle. And I feel like for the last three years, she has been losing. Yeah, I agree. I do think that the job itself changed a lot in 2024. I also kind of liken her to somebody who won the lottery and is taking credit for make it is like thinks that they're good businesswoman because of that. It's like someone that's like, Oh, yeah, I have $30 million in the bank. And I'm like, Okay, well, what did you start with? And it's like, 100. Oh, like, yeah, you know, she didn't crash a Ferrari, but she certainly dented it. The Ferrari could be doing a lot better right now if somebody else was a driver. But to be to your point, though, she wasn't the driver that was originally designed for the Ferrari. She was supposed to take up like a bent a bent up 1994 something or whatever. I'm not a car person. And basically, like make it drivable again. And that's what she did. She took over the league at the time at a time when the ratings were fledgling. 2019 was a really bad year. 2019 was a really bad year for the league. And then COVID happened and COVID had massive financial ramifications for anybody that was in the event based space. So her ability to construct the wobble like those are the logistical type of decisions that she was good at making. And that definitely helped the league survive. But the league then went from this thing that was like, just kind of trying to get its wheels back to then Yeah, being a Ferrari and it went, it went, it became this political hurricane that became a vessel for modern American anxieties, the nature of the job changed. And as it changed, it became very clear how unprepared she was for it. She the beginning of the end for me. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. I think we're late. I was gonna say she got a car with 100,000 miles and was told make this thing run like new. And by 2024, it was like, great, you've got this car with 100,000 miles on it running like new. Now we need you to build this car into something that can ride at Talladega next week. And it was like, that's a fee. You don't have the facilities for that big man. Like it just was not. Yeah, ever. No, she wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think I think I was thinking about the when the beginning of the end was. And I think it was early in 2024. She does this interview on CNBC on there. I think it was her power something business show. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She is asked. Power Hour. Thank you. Thank you. And she is asked about the, you know, I'll just pull it up. So I want to get I want to get it right. Um, she gets this question. I don't think she's going to be asked. I think she's going on a business show because she wants to, like she is wanting to do take a victory lap over the WNBA is business success. And this is actually one of the few times that she used. Caitlin Clark's name in crediting the in crediting the league for um or in crediting her for the league's growth right like oftentimes like she did in her interview with howard magdal she kind of tries to take credit for it for it herself but in this interview she really steps into it cnbc power lunch um so she has she's asked a question that's you know about how race has been introduced into conversation sexuality has been introduced into the conversation conversation um people are saying really uncharitable things about some of your most visible players how do you get ahead of that how do you tap it down um and she kind of has this meandering long answer where she says hey in sports you need rivalries that's what people that's what makes people watch um she compares it to larry and magic one was black and the other one was white um and she basically tells the players if someone's talking to you on social media that you wouldn't take their advice then ignore it um and she also basically tries to say hey this is good this is good this is good for our business model right the pa immediately responds um and says this is not about rivalries or iconic personalities feeling a business model this is a kind of toxic fandom that should never be tolerated or left unchecked it demands immediate action frankly should have been addressed long ago that was 2024 the contours of the problems that define like the last three years of her leadership in this league in this answer it's avoiding and ignoring the larger problem it's trying to flip it into a positive and take credit for it it's going on a platform where she doesn't think she's going to get hard questions um and not knowing how to answer them when she does like the the funniest thing about how remember when kathy canceled on dan patrick a couple weeks ago or a couple months ago or whatever whenever that was she actually at that same very same yeah at that very same golf enterprise reporter from san francisco for a newspaper interview for the sf chronicle it kind of got buried because of course it did um and the dan patrick thing took over the news cycle but she was basically trying to take a victory lap for the valkyrie's business success when in reality the valkyrie's business success runs in in complete different opposite direction of what you would have recommended for them down to the fact that she didn't even recommend their that for for them to actually name themselves about no she didn't even recommend for them to to have the color scheme that they had that color scheme has been massively successful from a business perspective she certainly wouldn't have recommended them leaning in to queerness and and the local bay area population the way that she has because kathy engelbert's tenure has always been defined by trying to appease and attract some apocryphal average fan who would love the league a little a little more if it was just like a little less gay and a little less black and a little bit more i'm fired up a little bit here two x i think two x two x you know what my podcast you get you get the gay thing twice um i i think i think if i can thank you thank you thank you thank you look i think that there are things that she did well i think that even even on the business level she did well i think that even even on the business level she did well i think that she did which is her biggest strength at this point she was overmatched for what this requires because yes the pr aspect is important and i certainly want to get into that um i've said this before on the podcast but a good businesswoman listens to her customers her customers have been asking for you to for her to address the refereeing issues they've been asking for you to address marketing issues they've been asking the the players who are your labor and your product have been telling you that they feel unsafe on and off the court um and on top of that you've simultaneously ignored them and i'm thinking even about how the wnba has handled the anti-trans protesters that have been at games and how all the leadership as far as making fans feel safe has come from players and it has come from teams it has from come from teams at like the liberty and the tron tempo and the valkyries who are putting stuff on their jumbotron saying we love you trans fans they're putting like the the the the camera on the trans fans are uplifting the trans fans they really want to make sure that the trans fans feel safe because the trans fans are also a proxy for just wanting everybody to feel safe like i think that there's this attitude there's this attitude which i think is the correct attitude is like if one aspect of your fans is safe then it's safe and it's safe and it's safe and it's safe if one aspect of your fan base feels alienated for no other reason than who they are when they wake up in the morning then that threatens your entire enterprise and it's been the players it's been the coaches it's been cheryl reeve it's been natalie nikasi it's been gabby williams um and the league meanwhile has been incredibly avoidant they've been silent aside from leaking memos we have yet to see a public statement from kathy engelbert on any of this at a time when you know enos canter was basically hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public and they've been hiding from the public hijacking what the league's narrative was all about um the chicago sky banned him from the win trust arena the wnba does not ban him from arenas the next night royce white is at a game and you just allow these stories to continue and continue and continue and thank god for hassan piker because finally fox news has something else to focus on but it had nothing to do with any of the of the leadership or any any any leadership or anything like that or proactive decision making from the part of the league office i think people are just kind of tired on a different level of that particular culture war and you know the conservative right decided to move on to a different thing but they would have moved right back to the wnba if it ever served them and any any time that has happened the league has not known how to respond it has not responded it has left its players and its coaches and its teams holding the bag and thank god those people are not going to be the ones to be the ones to be the ones to be the ones to be the people actually know what to do in those situations thank god those people actually know how to lead in those situations 2020 i don't know created a false sense of security for kathy and and i think that this is something that is always a little tricky right because so many fans came into the league in 2024 and understandably so right you follow caitlin you follow angel you follow page and it's great that new fans are here it's awesome that they're here i'm sure the players who are cashing million dollar contracts as much as they might hate the fact that they're dealing with a lot of shit on social media like the material conditions have substantially improved and so here's the thing with the lack of context that comes around when you get this massive influx of people that come in is that past behaviors are always indicative of of future patterns right unless you make as an individual a serious personal adjustment to trying to adjust what you did so you do not do it the same way in the future and the skeleton key for kathy engelbert and how she's always handled these types of issues in the wmba is what happened in the bubble in 2020 so the george floyd and jacob blake shootings happen there is a massive wave of activism in the nba and wnba at their respective bubbles and the wnba uh players association aligns themselves publicly with the black lives matter movement and kelly leffler who at the time was a appointed senator of georgia that she had not been fully elected her election was coming up that november of 20 against rafael warnock who was the democratic nominee at the time leffler was a partial owner of the atlanta dream it had been since the league's inception but the thing to understand about that entire situation because we all know how it ended dream players really pushed warnock and actively campaigned for him warnock beats leffler larry godestiner's crew takes ownership of the atlanta dream leffler's out of the wnba at no point during that entire process did kathy engelbert ever utter kelly leffler's name publicly never did not even at the press conference at the end when they introduced uh larry godestiner they never got in the middle of leffler and her beef with atlanta and her desire to put the wnba in the in the crosshairs of fox news in the middle of one of arguably the most tenuous social times that this country has had probably since 68. and the more you understand the fact that kathy engelbert has always been happy and okay letting her players be the vanguard to not only make the big changes but also to take all the bullets too right if you understand that 2020 situation it makes 2024 through 26 make a lot more sense and it makes you more mad because what you realize is the only reason that that 2020 situation worked out well is because leffler didn't get elected if she ended up in office and they still had godestiner by that team she's still in a place of public position and a place of um actual consequence where she can go after the wnba but kathy engelbert was lucky and the way that a lot of post 2020 successes occurred even um doing something like selling off an equity stake of about 80 million dollars in your league to try and get some cash infusion to stay afloat financially during covid Yeah, I mean, it worked out in the near term, much like the Leffler situation, did but you know what's going to happen in the long term when we go back to the cba table again we're actually going to have a real deal rubber meets road moment with what gross revenue sharing is actually feasible to do in this league as long as the percentage not going to the players is going to be split three different ways in the long term for what kathy engelbert has done in terms of thinking that the way she handled leffler was the right way to do it you ended up with the situation that we have now with canter with white with riley gaines with the trans discussion becoming one in the wnba when it never needed to be in the first place and so you know now that i'm cooking and now that we've gotten through the wnba pr people who probably listened to this for the first five minutes to make sure i wasn't saying anything mean now i can actually be you know really go into saying what i want to say about kathy which is the fact that at no point over the course of her career in time in the wnba has she ever been proactive and when we talk about what's going on in the world right now we're talking about what's going on in the world right the next commissioner needs to do this is a league that is growing and people say well the owner is always the person that exists in the at the discretion of the board of governors or of the owners of the league they're never going to be on the side of labor you shouldn't expect them to be yeah i expect the commissioner of a league to understand that their job more than anything is not keeping the owners happy it's the preservation of their league and their product and kathy engelbert did is she got through one really traumatic time and managed to make it work in the short term and then turned around and said you know what i'm going to do i'm going to do this that's the model that we're going to use the rest of the way no matter what happens and what changes and that that lack of desire to change or be nimble or be proactive or tell bad faith actors to kick rocks and get the hell out of your league all of those things end up creating all of these massive holes that now the next commissioner has to face yeah yeah i mean she had an opportunity after nefisa collier went scorched earth on her to really look back and say okay obviously the players aren't happy with me nobody nobody publicly or privately in the entire league has come to my defense and say hey what nefisa said about kathy was untrue some people took issue with the way that she said it some people took issue with the fact that kathy got villainized and the way that our modern media uh ecosystem works somebody who especially a woman who gets villainized is going to receive things that are just unfair even no matter how much scrutiny you're getting i saw people have an issue with that i didn't see one person have an issue with the things that she was actually actually saying and i think that would have been a great opportunity for kathy engelbert to look in the mirror and say hey okay the job as it was is not the job as it is what do i need to do to change and it always was let's build another task force that does nothing um there was never any structural change in the way that she thought in the way that the league office ran and this was also a commissioner that i think was uniquely concerned with likability in a way that you simply cannot be if you are a commissioner of any league commissioners are not well liked it is not their job to be well like it is it is their job to your point andrew to take the bullets for the people that you're that are actually supposed to be your brand it is your job to be the heel it is your job to be the one that has to come down let's say for example for this situation right now with um with with with the anti-trans movement it is your job to actually protect the league and what the league is all about so that other people don't have to so that they can actually focus on the games and they can actually focus on putting out a product for the fans that are in the arena that are there to see good basketball but this commissioner i think has never understood what makes the league actually special um and or what the fans are asking from it whether it is like a normie fan who is just here for the basketball and would just like to watch some good basketball and they are asking for better referees they are asking for just some some sincerely normal stuff better marketing stuff like better marketing and from the fans who i think understand what the best part of a wnba game is the in-person experience and what has happened in the last few months has actually threatened the one thing that i think the wnba has over any other league the in-person experience of a wnba game is propulsive it is magnetic it is joyful it is affordable it is just a place that you want to be and it will make you understand what makes this league like what gives this league incredible potential especially in in this particular era as well right like the wnba is obviously like a huge source or just like a huge vessel in the culture wars but it's not a huge vessel in the culture wars just just for no reason or just because of the makeup of its players it's because it's a powerful agent of of change like you have the women's basketball has always been this it has been this place that can create spaces that have never existed anywhere else you know when you go to these arenas new york portland the bay area they are like a game seven and a pride parade um they are like they're just really propulsive and they can simultaneously contain a sophie cunningham they can contain a golden state balconies at the same time like they are they are the league is simultaneously a it is a reflection of our polarization but it's also a container of it as well and whoever the next commissioner is needs to understand that this is a very uneasy alliance and some of those people just don't need to be around anymore but the vast majority of people actually go to games like they're cool like you know like yeah they might disagree politically or whatever but like there there's a degree to which like this does have to be like a a a wide a wide tent right um but all of those people the only thing that they have been aligned by is their dislike of you at this point as a commissioner that is the one thing that they can all agree on so there's a lot of space there's still a lot of space for for a lot of those people to actually find common ground and just wanting to wanting the league to function better um and here's something i wanted to ask you andrew like one thing one thing i've been thinking about is i feel like the growth of women's basketball women's sports overall um it's kind of taken like this pincer like shape like where you have people who on one end are incredibly idealistic and ambitious and they see the vision for what the league can be and it's a vision of something that is increasingly clear in our wider culture is increasingly clear when you go to like the when you see like the daisy chain fields festival when you go to concerts um is increasingly clear just from what people want um but there's also this pragmatism this fearfulness that has existed on on the other end of it and you can take it back to choosing the ncaa over the ai aw you can take it to the wnba winning over the abl but you are the historian here so i was wondering if you had because i think the most charitable way that you can look at kathy engelbert is to say that yeah she had to shepherd the league out of these moments where pragmatism was actually what was necessary she had to shepherd the league out of these moments where there was an existential threat to its existence so of course she might not be the right person who can shepherd the league through a time when you should be thinking more visionary things like there is you know the context in which she came from the coconut tree piece of all of this i think about the current cultural moment we're living in right and how what it feels like a lot of people are looking for regardless of where they are aligned politically is they want ideals like they they want a populist realistically because the the idealist at least looks around and says better things are possible here so let's fight for them now in a sport like women's basketball or any type of plan to fix the wnba is what you're saying i mean look when you look at well i mean kind of to your point on that end right like you look at i know i know that there's a lot of people who are like i don't know i don't know i don't know there's this whole thing with him about like his little you know signal group chat pr army that's out there right now which i don't love but the fact that the messaging of of his whole style in new york is literally look at the little things we're doing right better things are possible because like you just do little things together as a community i think that's a really powerful messaging that the wnba can have because you know when i look at a wnba game i look at it in in the opposite realm of of something like what it's diametrically opposed to and in my mind it's that's rodeo i spent a couple years coming out of college um working in local tv and covering rodeo in wyoming the college national finals and cheyenne frontier days and there's an interesting thing when you go to rodeo events where they say the prayer there's an expectation that when you roll up you got your cinch button down shirt you got your hat you got your jeans and boots no one look you know nobody says you know that it's a problem if you don't roll up with them but there is i think an etiquette to it right we're seeing this in the u.s open right now a discussion about like what actually is tennis etiquette when you have all of these influencers that are in arthur ash stadium and in the wnba i think There is a been a longstanding pragmatism under Kathy Engelbert that it does not matter what our etiquette is within the stadiums. It doesn't matter what our etiquette is within the sport, because as long as it grows, it means that we are finding widespread acceptance in some way. And when you look back in history, that was the same argument that a lot of female administrators were making for deciding to get set with the NCAA in 1982. Up until that point, the NCAA didn't recognize women's basketball. They were two separate athletic departments completely for men's and women's sports. And the women had their own community or governmental body, which was the American Intercollegiate Association for Women or some of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, the AIAW, as you mentioned. And the thought process in 82 behind going from the AIAW to the NCAA was in the long term. You know, people like Barbara Hedges, who was the AD for U.S. and Cheryl Miller's team at the time, told me once that the idea was that the NCAA had better backing, better funding, better base level understanding of how to make things work from a business perspective. But more broadly than that, they saw acceptance in the idea that getting in bed with the NCAA was something that didn't make the AIAW an insurgency anymore. It didn't make women's basketball an insurgency anymore. It made it something that was collectively understood within broader mainstream culture. And the difference between where Kathy Engelbert's head is at and where I think a lot of people within the WNBA are at is they have two very different viewpoints on how acceptance is found. And Kathy Engelbert's mindset is found by making the money, by having the mainstream success, by having more fans. There are physical accounting and logistical indicators that show your acceptance or prove your acceptance. Whereas culturally within women's basketball. And within just the women's rights and suffrage movement in general, there's another aspect to it where it's if you have to have, you know, if you don't know us and what we do and you're not super familiar with women's basketball as a sport, you come into our situation. And if you like it, you find a conformity to that. And that becomes its own individual culture that becomes accepted and celebrated. And the way that I, as a dude coming out of suburban New York, would never understand. I've grown to pair a cowboy boots in his life. I'm going and showing up to Lou Talbert's and frigging Casper to buy a Stetson hat for the first time ever. I'm rolling up because there is an etiquette that wants to be that I that I believe should be followed there. Right. And Kathy Engelbert, I think, found herself. Ultimately, I don't think that. Well, ultimately, I don't think that you can divorce a culture around the culture that is around a sport from itself. Right. Like, nor should you try to in most instances. Now, some of those cultures do come with institutions. And I'm not saying it's institutionalized discrimination that you can bet out as well, but the the actual practice of, you know, an aesthetic or a culture and like a way of life like that is essentially what a culture is, is inextricable from the people who are participating in it. We saw this during the FIFA World Cup. It is a good thing. And by and large, I do believe most of the people who want to give their dollars to the WNBA are at least. Passively interested in the culture of the WNBA or at the very least, accept it for what it is. And if they don't, then the widespread popularity of the league at this point is large enough that. You don't have to let in everybody at the door like it's not like it goes back to the Enos thing. If you have perpetually had somebody crash your house party that ruins it and is like breaking vases all over the place, you were allowed to ban that person from. Future house parties. The House Party will actually get better. I doesn't matter if like there's one or two less people at the House Party. You'd much rather be at the party. Exactly, exactly. And I want it. So I want I want to get into that. And I know you got to leave soon, so I just before you got to go, I want to talk a little bit about who we think the next commissioner of the WNBA should be. I'll start with should be. Or will be. Should be. Should be, will be a little a little a little bit of everything. Kathy is, according to Howard Magdal, she is given a list of internal, external candidates. I do not believe it will be internal. I just think and I don't think it should be internal. But there's also been reporting that it probably will not be internal. This this league office is just like it's just there's just so much cynicism in the league office. I just think that you need somebody that has a little bit more of a positive outlook on what women's basketball could be. Someone like Jess Smith, who runs the business side for the Valkyries, I think could be really interesting. She also ran the business side for Angel City, which was able to do very, very similar things as Valkyries have done and actually kind of fallen off a cliff since she's left. But this is a Valkyries team that has done a great job of rallying the local community. That's and, you know, the Bay Area is obviously very progressive. It has a lot of people of color. You know, they have and, you know, this is also where it gets into like representation is important, but also means nothing. If, you know, the people who are there are not actually representing your interests. But, you know, you have, you know, a coach who understands the importance of all of that. She's also the first Asian-American coach in WNBA history. And she's also one of the best coaches in the league. They managed to hit that trifecta. This is the first women's franchise to reach a one billion dollar valuation, according to the Sports Business Journal. When the Valkyries unveiled their pride collection this year, their merchandising sales jumped by 70 percent. This is the league that does, you know, the V's up and Gabby Williams is going for the gays. And everybody wants to be at those games as well. Another person who was kind of in the ilk of her was actually kind of the progenitor of all of this is Kia Clark, who is the CEO of the New York Liberty as well. The person who was like the the the brain trust behind Ellie the Elephant, who is basically like a canonically gay Brooklyn ballroom dancer. Brooklyn Ellie. Who saw Cowboy Carter live multiple times, like, you know. And the commercial and cultural success of somebody like Ellie is why we're seeing like these these these mascots in Toronto like Des and non-binary DJ and Portland mascot Ross, who I think is a high femme lesbian. But, you know, like you're seeing these teams like within the teams, like they are really figuring out how to make the culture and the business work together in a way that's really fun and in a way that has visions and in a way that is idealistic in a way that is working. So those are those types of people are like my dream candidates. Who do you have? Yeah, and I really like where your head's at, that the next person should not look at this as a binary, which is the difference between how good and how big the rigor WNBA show is versus no cap space is you basically took five minutes of rambles and made it into 30 seconds of a perfectly salient cogent point. I had more time than you. The person that was going to balance. I'll give it to you. Because there's a thing. You're right. It's all about balance. It's like it's it's about understanding that the culture you have here is good and it doesn't need to be changed and it doesn't need to be homogenized. It just needs to be fostered in a way that that side is similarly accepting of the people that are coming in. So long as there is a clear rule and expectation set by the league, not like in a real rule, but just kind of a vibe and aesthetic from the top down, feeling that that what is here is does not need to necessarily be changed from a personal perspective. The rule doesn't have to be anything beyond just be normal, which is why I love, love, love Candace Story Lee, the Vanderbilt athletic director. If I don't know if she would ever take it, but if she wanted that job, she is my first call. Vanderbilt basketball player played on the Jim Foster teams of the 1990s is she's been a Vandy lifer. So like it's a bit of a different experience for her that you would be. But she has managed one of the hardest periods in collegiate athletics and has turned Vanderbilt into a juggernaut in a variety of sports, brought Shea Ralph down to this team, kept Vanderbilt baseball nationally competitive, has completely transformed Vanderbilt football, overseeing the introduction of new stadium. Vanderbilt's got a ton of rich alums like it was always this sleeping giant down there, but nobody ever understood how to actually get the alumni involved. She knows how. To be in boardroom. She knows how to talk to people who need to be convinced of things. And not only that, I want a nimble commissioner this time. And nobody, I think, deals with more rule changes, things happening on a day to day than the people that are working in collegiate athletics right now. So the WNBA is a different job than the NBA. It's a different job than the NFL. You don't need a top of the line guy just to make sure that the owners are happy and the trains run on time. You need a person who's going to be. You need a person who's going to be presiding over a stage of growth that I would argue is going to be even more explosive than the last five years was. So in order to do that, you need a person who understands what it what it means to work in a landscape of constant change. And I don't think anybody's handled it better than her. Interesting. She also would have approved the Tennessee Summit, I'm sure, which should be an expansion team. But they are not. The WNBA just copies the NBA. And that's something that, you know, maybe for a later episode, we can get into the commissioner. There's role in general and the kind of limitations of the power that she has. What about NECA? you know i've thought about this i you have to pair her with a really good second like you have to pair her with a really good like league ops person um because look ultimately on some level being a commissioner is a business position as well so like you know you're like you're like i know neck is damn smart i know neck is doing all of the things that she needs to do she was educated at stanford she does not need my stamp of approval on if she can handle her own in a boardroom with with these guys but like at the same time you're going to be negotiating like a lot of big tv deals on the side not with your main rights partners but with like usa and cbs and all of these things are you are you ready for that like have you been doing that long enough that you know how to sell that you know how to talk that you know how to manage those egos in boardrooms um which is why i think i would bring her on as a really high level like number two or number three to start and then she'd be my next i just feel like that's a good idea going from player straight to commissioner feels like some stuff we were doing in like the 1970s which was fair for that time the game has changed a lot since then yeah well the players union had was disappointed in the media deal they felt like the league could have gotten a lot more they could and they did want to see owners could have gotten more yeah absolutely they could have they could have gotten magnitudes of more money from the media deal um but you need someone who's actually willing to say that to adam silver right um you need someone who's willing to say hey we want to negotiate our own media rights deal um but they wanted to seat at a table after last year's media deal or like the last media deal so neca would be kind of a version of that in a way um but yeah i think it's a pretty big jump to go from pro athlete to commissioner right but she does she understands i think the interpersonal aspects of it that matter um yeah so i think i think she i like your idea like number two first wouldn't be the worst like she's a current owner and the other well the other thing with neca the other thing with neca she plans to play on project b that's a huge conflict of interest and then sue is a team owner as well i wonder if sue would if they would have died they would have if you said to sue we'll make it a commissioner of the w but you would need to divest out of your ownership i wonder you think she would or do you think she'd be like not money money well i mean she's probably made a ton from it all right um and you know you can always put that money somewhere else as well um yeah maybe maybe um one person i've heard is susan rice and to kiki rice famously the former un ambassador and national security advisor under obama she's a women's basketball fan she is not somebody that adam silver could fuck around with and she would add more gravitas to a position that is defined by soft power because it doesn't have a lot of hard power the notion of a two-horse pseudo electoral race between susan rice and condoleezza rice for wnba commissioner is going to keep me up at night i don't need condoleezza rice anywhere around the w and this is one thing i think people are going to be people are going to be talking a lot about like the demographic of who the next step wnba commissioner should be i think a lot of the fans will be pushing for a black woman and i think a lot of the kind of there's going to be people who are like oh they need a man to get in here and like and just clean things up i think ultimately representation does not mean a thing if you are not actually representing the interests of the people who you purport to be representing which is why i do not need condoleezza rice anywhere near the wnba i would far i would much rather have a progressive white man in that position than condoleezza rice do i think it'll be a progressive white man man i don't know i don't think so i do um is there like you used to hear donathan who's kathy's number two there was a time she had the reputation i think with the kathy tenure last two years if he basically name checked her in a way in her um in in her you know scorchers press conference a year ago so i think she's out um taj mcwilliams franklin second and commanded uh upshot behind donna arenda is probably the last one that i'd be like yeah if i were to kind of go for like a like a reach of someone that's got name player respect and also you know upshot is only a year old but but dollars to donuts man donna arenda probably is the most successful president of the wnba that that we've ever had so being her second in command for a period of time might actually be the thing that that could be you know needed and necessary so um there's a lot of interesting there's a lot of interesting names out there too because like there's a lot of private sector names that i think are also kind of interesting here yeah absolutely um okay andrew thank you so much for hopping on i appreciate you um i know you got to go so i'll let you hop and then i'm gonna i'm gonna keep going for a couple minutes here just to give people a little bit a little bit of context but um thank you for for giving us a time and your insight of course and we're gonna home and home this so uh if you want to hear uh more of uh of the two person we've talked about this sir or we'll text but you're coming on of course thank you for having me i will be there no matter what this episode is brought to you by major league baseball there is nowhere left to go two teams one championship watch the world series yeah the world series presented by capital one on fox and fox one no time like october visit mlb.com slash postseason to learn more the mosquito bowl is the incredible true story of four college football stars who walked away from nfl careers after pearl harbor to enlist in the marines from friday night lights director peter berg and starring nicholas gallatin bill skarsgård ray nicholson and tom francis comes a story of brotherhood and sacrifice four men who traded the gridiron for the battlefield the mosquito bowl in theaters october 30th before this there's this as you celebrate the game take a deeper look at its roots the people grow in the grass paving the lots welding the goalposts inspecting every football the hard-working people that make every sunday possible carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game visit carhartt.com join the trades to learn more all right so i wanted to add some context because i imagine there are some people who are listening to the show that aren't as plugged in on the business side of women's basketball so andrew mentioned the capital raise in in 2021 what that was was the league and and at the beginning of the year it was the league that was meant to be a capital infusion into the league to allow it to run at the same rate it was meant to be a capital infusion into the league to allow it to run at the same rate it was meant to be a capital infusion into the league to allow it to grow aspects um that just needed more investment grow aspects um that just needed more investment whether it's marketing brand elevation the whether it's marketing brand elevation the globalization of the league addressing overall globalization of the league addressing overall obstacles to growth that the league was facing obstacles to growth that the league was facing at the time you could argue that at the time that at the time you could argue that at the time that was something that the league needed it was hard was something that the league needed it was hard to get people to actually invest um in the league to get people to actually invest um in the league without giving up a major stake however now that's without giving up a major stake however now that's 75 million dollar stake if you just look 75 million dollar stake if you just look at the the way that franchise valuations have gone up i would at the way that franchise valuations have gone up i would not be surprised if that 75 million dollar not be surprised if that 75 million dollar stake is now worth a billion dollars the w nba did report stake is now worth a billion dollars the w nba did report um there was reporting that the w nba was um there was reporting that the w nba was looking into buying back that stake um it would probably looking into buying back that stake um it would probably cost a significant amount of money and it cost a significant amount of money and it came up during the cba negotiations as well because came up during the cba negotiations as well because what it did was it split the what is already a what it did was it split the what is already a complicated ownership structure of the league complicated ownership structure of the league even more so the league is owned in part by this even more so the league is owned in part by this even more so the league is owned in part by this group that is invested into the league it is then group that is invested into the league it is then owned by the w nba owners who own about like 44 owned by the w nba owners who own about like 44 owned by the w nba owners who own about like 44 of the league and then it is owned by the nba of the league and then it is owned by the nba of the league and then it is owned by the nba owners who own the other 44 i might be getting owners who own the other 44 i might be getting owners who own the other 44 i might be getting the numbers wrong um but basically there's a the numbers wrong um but basically there's a the numbers wrong um but basically there's a three-way split and who owns the league three-way split and who owns the league three-way split and who owns the league and there's even even within that there and there's even even even within that there and there's even even even within that there are people who own a w nba franchise are people who own a w nba franchise are people who own a w nba franchise and nba franchise and are part of the and nba franchise and are part of the and nba franchise and are part of the capital raise like the size um for for capital raise like the size um for for capital raise like the size um for for example like i think joe lakob for example like i think joe lakob for example like i think joe lakob for example the owner of the golden state example the owner of the golden state example the owner of the golden state valkyries and the warriors um so the valkyries and the warriors um so the valkyries and the warriors um so the league's ownership structure is very league's ownership structure is very league's ownership structure is very very complicated and that made it very very complicated and that made it very very complicated and that made it very hard hard hard for there to be a revenue sharing for there to be a revenue sharing for there to be a revenue sharing component component component in this cba that's why it was so hard in this cba that's why it was so hard in this cba that's why it was so hard for the players to fight for gross for the players to fight for gross for the players to fight for gross revenue which is what they got they now revenue which is what they got they now revenue which is what they got they now make 20 make 20 make 20 of gross revenue they're going to come of gross revenue they're going to come of gross revenue they're going to come for more in the next cba this is all for more in the next cba this is all for more in the next cba this is all good this was already good this was already good this was already already something that made um ownership already something that made um ownership already something that made um ownership and and and this was already something this was already something this was already something that made um the growth of the league that made um the growth of the league that made um the growth of the league complicated over the course of cba complicated over the course of cba complicated over the course of cba negotiations and it's only going to make negotiations and it's only going to make negotiations and it's only going to make it more complicated and it's only going it more complicated and it's only going it more complicated and it's only going to be more costly as we move on to try to be more costly as we move on to try to be more costly as we move on to try to actually um remedy this issue to actually um remedy this issue to actually um remedy this issue uh the other thing too is that um uh the other thing too is that um uh the other thing too is that um there's a structural issue with the there's a structural issue with the there's a structural issue with the commissioner's role in the wnba because commissioner's role in the wnba because commissioner's role in the wnba because the commissioner not only answers to the the commissioner not only answers to the the commissioner not only answers to the wnba owners but wnba owners but wnba owners but the commissioner's boss is essentially the commissioner's boss is essentially the commissioner's boss is essentially adam silver adam silver And that's what she answers to. she doesn't have a lot of hard power um as owners have said in the past if the wnba wants something and the nba wants something different the nba gets what it wants and for a league that has needed the nba at different periods um it's it and it's you know there have been times when the nba is basically like funded the wnba we are far removed from that position now um in a way that you know there's reporting that i can't really get into it but we are way so so far um and i hope i can say more on that later um but we are so far removed from from that point financially at this point that at this point it would behoove the wnba to actually have a lot more say over the direction of its growth that's how you could get franchises um in places that aren't nba teams like for example in iowa tennessee south carolina places where women's basketball is more popular than it is in say somewhere like you know philadelphia um you that is something that we will get into um as you know i'm sure we will continue to cover this story but that is just some context i wanted to add for this particular show um as always thank you for listening thank you to andrew hobner at no cap space um go listen to his breakdown um you know he he's just he's an excellent person to have on and really talk about the historical context of a lot of this stuff and thank you to stefan anderson for producing as well before this there's this as you celebrate the game take a deeper look at its roots the people grow in the grass paving the lots welding the goalposts inspecting every football the hard-working people that make every sunday possible carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game visit carhartt.com join the trades to learn more the mosquito bowl is the incredible true story of four college football stars who walked away from nfl careers after pearl harbor to enlist in the marines from friday night lights director peter berg and starring nicholas gallatin bill skarsgård ray nicholson and tom francis comes a story of the history of carhartt and the history of carhartt and the history of carhartt and the brotherhood and sacrifice four men who traded the gridiron for the battlefield the mosquito bowl in theaters october 30th