WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert swung and missed on a softball question from CNBC on Monday when she failed to denounce the racism and homophobia her players face online day to day.
The player, fan, and media backlash to Engelbert’s gaffe has been resounding, with longtime ESPN commentator Sarah Spain going so far as to say Engelbert is part of the problem if she can’t stand up for her players.
In the opening segment of her podcast Good Game on Wednesday, Spain argued that Engelbert’s surface-level dismissal of the hateful rhetoric on social media was “not enough,” that she “failed” in her answer, and that she is “part of the issue” herself.
“Perhaps Cathy Engelbert as a leader, if this is the way she views this problem, is part of the issue,” Spain explained. “If Engelbert is too distanced from the actual experience of the players to recognize the severity of this, which includes death threats … she might feel like her answer was comprehensive enough. It clearly wasn’t.”
Spain criticized Engelbert and the WNBA league office for not having a plan to counter the nasty tone of discussion online about rookie rivals Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, and for not listening to her players before it reached a boiling point.
After months of threats, insults, and nastiness, Spain said players can’t be expected to simply tune out the noise.
“It sounds simple, but when so much of your economic opportunity as a league, so much of the conversation around the league, and frankly, so much of life for young people takes place online, so simply say ‘don’t read the comments’ … is not enough,” Spain said.
Engelbert clarified her comments in a fairly succinct post on X on Tuesday.
During a recent media interview, I was asked about the dark side of social media and online conversation about WNBA rivalries and race. To be clear, there is absolutely no place for hate or racism of any kind in the WNBA or anywhere else.
— Cathy Engelbert (@CathyEngelbert) September 11, 2024
And while Engelbert missed the low bar of denouncing the hate speech her players are victim to, Spain wants to hear a concrete plan for weeding out that kind of chatter and protecting players from real-life ramifications of it.
“This answer was a fail. It was incomplete,” Spain said. “The simplistic idea of denouncing racism, homophobia, sexism, yeah absolutely. Start with that. But ultimately, the question here for Cathy and the larger question for the league is what do you plan to do about his? How do you get ahead of it? Not just how do you respond to it, but how are you preventative or how are you collective in your efforts to make sure it doesn’t get fostered by anyone in the media, by fan bases.”
The WNBA has often evolved and thrived not because of its leadership, but in spite of it. Time and time again, it has been the players who have championed themselves and pushed the league forward to enact change.
And this is just the latest example.https://t.co/JmhAcqSRqn
— Lyndsey D’Arcangelo 🏀 (@darcangel21) September 11, 2024
For a league led by women, many of whom are Black and many of whom are part of the LGBTQ community, Spain believes support for the players is a non-negotiable for Engelbert.
Instead, Spain sees Engelbert avoiding the leadership and empathy that are needed from a commissioner in favor of simply focusing on the business.
“Cathy needs to care as much about this issue, and she needs to make that clear when she does interviews like this and when she’s making decisions about the league moving forward,” Spain argued.
Given that the WNBA players’ association and many individual athletes came out strongly against Engelbert’s answer after her appearance on CNBC and Engelbert rephrased herself, this may be the start of a new path forward. Or, it may create even more internal friction around the bumpy entry of Clark and Reese into the league even as the business around the WNBA erupts.
