WNBA, Commissioner Engelbert Score 3-Point Shot: Momentum, Media, Marketing

By Barry Janoff

September 12, 2022: Calling the 2022 season “memorable,” “exciting,” “record-setting” and one highlighted by “great business momentum,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert used her time during a media conference prior to Game 1 of the Finals to talk about the current and future status of the league.

And to also keep the spotlight on Brittney Griner.

“As we prepare to start this great series, it's important to reiterate that we are always thinking of Brittney Griner and our commitment to bring her home safely and as quickly as possible,” Engelbert said on Sunday (Sept. 11) before the tipoff of the Connecticut Sun-Las Vegas Aces best-of-five title series (ABC).

“That has not wavered. We continue to work with the State Department and the U.S. government and administration and others on this very complex situation.

“I also wanted to pause to remember those lives lost on 9/11. As someone who worked across the street in the world financial center at the time (as CEO for Deloitte), it's really always a somber day today in memory of those lost.”

Regarding the 2022 WNBA season, Engelbert said strong viewership numbers on league partners ESPN, ABC and CBS have bolstered WNBA efforts across business, growth and fan interaction, which the league sees as a key to support its plans for expansion and improved player compensation.

“We secured the largest-ever capital raised for a women's professional sports league back in February. We announced new and renewed partnerships like our newest WNBA Changemaker, U.S. Bank, which joins AT&T, Deloitte, Google and Nike; and great games that have led to increased viewership,” said Engelbert.

“From a viewership perspective, we just delivered the most-viewed WNBA playoffs in 20 years. And the most-watched regular season in 14 years for all of our television partners, ABC, CBS and ESPN.

“When looking at ways that our fans can experience the WNBA in person this year, our tentpole events continue to be some of our most popular events on calendar.

“We had the most viewed WNBA All-Star Game in six years with average viewership up 50% from last year, and we set an all-time WNBA record for merchandise sold in Chicago for a WNBA All-Star. Also WNBA Draft was the most watched draft since 2004 . . . up with 20% from the 2021 season.”

Engelbert said the league plans to play a pre-season game in Canada prior to the 2023 season, which would be its first international game since 2011. The WNBA is vetting expansion cities and, while the pre-season site was not yet named, Toronto would be good spot as it already has the Raptors and a solid NBA fan base.

Engelbert also said the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area was among the regions being given consideration for expansion.

“We have been looking at Canada for a while. In fact, pre-pandemic we were planning to play a pre-season game in Canada and obviously literally in like the coming off the CBA in January of 2020, talking with Canada and made a visit up there. Women's sports are very, very popular up there and they have been very successful in basketball, soccer and hockey.

“I would love to announce by the end of the year (WNBA expansion plans),” said Engelbert. “The great thing is we have more than ten cities interested and we continue to do calls in those cities with potential ownership groups and take potential bid situations seriously.

“These are complex situations to build expansion in cities. Again, you need to find the right owners with the right capital. We have to run an expansion draft, we have to let our GMs know in advance and head coaches what that's going to look like.

“We are working on all of that. We have work streams around all of that. We have a process and a lot of interest.”

Englebert said the WNBA continues to do “very hard work on expansion (with a) hundred cities we were looking at on the psychographics, the demographics, the current WNBA fan base, the merch buys, NCAA viewership, arena availability, committed ownership groups.

“We have narrowed that probably to about ten, and we're going to continue to work on that hard and hopefully can announce expansion over the next couple years."

The commissioner said that at the center of WNBA future plans — which includes growing to a record 40 regular-season games beginning in 2023 — is its players and working to improve their lives on and off the court.

“Significant process is being made . . . We just worked so hard with the Players Association on the ground-breaking CBA, and it's coming to life now through the ability to pay the players more, invest in the coverage and visibility these players are getting as a real legitimate sports, media and entertainment property that they are playing in,” said Engelbert.

“We have grown our player marketing platform moving into the off-season. So one of the things that we did in the CBA, we are going to pay a subset of the players across the off-season and we allocated money last year and were more than tripling the number of players we are going to put under league marketing agreements this year.”

According to Engelbert, the WNBA has “more than a hundred different types of opportunities available to be set up for our player marketing agreement players. So that's going to really help in the off-season.

“The whole purpose of the league is to make these players more visible in the off-season and market them around tentpole events that happen in the WNBA and the NBA. Last year, we had three players that came to All-Star and got great visibility and brand. Two of them came up to me at halftime of the NBA All-Star Game and said, ‘Can we do that next year?’ They are building their brands and seeing the attention they are getting.”

Despite Griner’s on-going situation of being detained in Russia since February, and an increase in player earning potential — Englebert said players can earn upward of $700,000 including base salary, Commissioner's Cup, award bonuses, player and league marketing deals at the team and league level (not including outside marketing deals), up from $117,000 base salary when she joined the league in 2019  — a number of players will continue to go overseas during the off-season.

“We understand the players are going to make the best decision for them and their families,” said Engelbert. “We see that time and time again. As I mentioned, we are chipping away at . . . giving players a reason to stay home and a reason to prioritize the WNBA.”

Regarding the growth of sports betting, Englebert said  “it's interesting that both the teams in the finals are in casino markets. We had a 270% jump in WNBA bet counts this year. So that's more people betting on the WNBA.”

FanDuel last week renewed and expanded its alliance with the WNBA, with the league planning to enhance the category.

“Certainly we would love to have more betting partners and we have a whole focus on this in the WNBA League office,” said Engelbert.

“If you've seen the data, more women are betting and our fan base skews more women, younger, more digital native. So we are excited for that as an opportunity, certainly in the markets in which we operate right now in the 12 states.

“It's not legal everywhere where we operate yet but it's provided opportunities. Phoenix last year announced a large betting deal with the Phoenix Mercury. As states legalize that, that will be opportunities for our teams in states where it's not yet legal.

“I talk a lot about transformation of the league and transformation does not happen overnight. It's a combination of really small, consistent and sustainable changes that quite frankly are like we see the holistic shift in both the economics of the league and the enhancement of the brand, and I can't be more pleased with some of the items I've mentioned today."

Photos: WNBA

WNBA Future: More Teams, Games, Money

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