5 methods WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert could make a very good first impression
Mechelle VoepelespnW.com
CloseMechelle Voepel covers the WNBA, girls’s faculty basketball, and different faculty sports activities for espnW. Voepel started protecting girls’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.
Cathy Engelbert, introduced because the WNBA’s new commissioner in Might, formally begins this week. The previous CEO of Deloitte LLC had a whole lot of success within the enterprise world, and she or he must hit the bottom working within the WNBA. Her to-do listing is in depth; engaged on a brand new collective bargaining settlement is on the high, and that can must be in place earlier than subsequent season. Extra instantly, listed here are 5 issues we might wish to see from the commissioner.
1. Management assertion about participant self-discipline
This may be tough, little question. Everybody deserves due course of underneath the regulation. However all skilled leagues have needed to take care of the query of disciplining gamers even when they’re nonetheless within the authorized course of or aren’t but going through costs however are being investigated.
The WNBA at present has one participant (Los Angeles’ Riquna Williams) going through assault costs for an altercation along with her former girlfriend. One other participant (Minnesota’s Odyssey Sims) is going through costs after being arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, for which she apologized to the Lynx group. And this previous weekend, Seattle’s Natasha Howard was accused of home violence by her spouse in a collection of Twitter posts that included a video of a verbal confrontation between the 2. At this level, there was no formal criticism in opposition to Howard or any police investigation, though the Storm mentioned they’re investigating.
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On Tuesday, the WNBA suspended Williams for 10 video games after conducting its personal investigation into the incident final December.
Every scenario raised the query of how the WNBA has responded. The league has a bit on participant conduct and self-discipline in its present CBA that may be very generalized. It leads with: “Gamers shall always conform their conduct to requirements of excellent citizenship, good ethical character, and good sportsmanship and shall not do something detrimental or prejudicial to the perfect pursuits of the WNBA, their groups, or the game of basketball.”
The WNBA doesn’t have a particular coverage on home (or intimate companion) violence, because the NBA and Main League Baseball now have. It is very doubtless that will likely be mentioned for the WNBA’s subsequent CBA.
Within the meantime, followers need to the WNBA for management. Once more, there are authorized parameters the league has to respect, however an announcement from Engelbert on how critically the WNBA takes these points can be a welcomed signal of that management.
2. Promise to satisfy with each group’s followers
Like earlier WNBA leaders (who had the title “president”), Engelbert spoke when she bought the job of eager to journey round and be taught extra about each group.
How a couple of fan “discussion board” in each WNBA metropolis? If not all this summer time, then together with subsequent summer time too. It is not simply that the followers’ financial funding within the league is vital. It is that they genuinely hope to be a part of the WNBA’s continued progress and have necessary perception to share about what they need (extra merchandise, for one factor) and the way a lot it issues to only really feel heard.
three. Have a dialog with Maya Moore
Maya Moore, a four-time WNBA champion and the 2014 league MVP, is taking off this 12 months from basketball. She mentioned in a latest New York Instances story that she would not need to speak proper now about when — or even when — she is returning to the game. Moore additionally mentioned the work she is doing involving the felony justice system, particularly with an inmate in her hometown of Jefferson Metropolis, Missouri.
That story has been the one actual perception into Moore’s life since her announcement by way of The Gamers Tribune in February saying that she would not play this WNBA season. Different interview requests haven’t been granted, though Moore is reportedly engaged on a documentary and may deal with the media within the fall.
It’s actually Moore’s prerogative to take time away from the game and media. It appeared clear even final season that she in all probability wanted a break.
Nonetheless, Moore is a vitally necessary determine in girls’s basketball, a future Corridor of Famer even when she by no means performs one other minute. If Engelbert hasn’t talked to Moore already, she ought to; it would not need to about basketball, however nearly what Moore is doing now and the way she feels. That may ship a message to Moore about her worth to the league as an individual, not simply as a participant.
Breanna Stewart is making barely extra money this season as a WNBA ambassador than she would have if she was enjoying — but it surely’s unclear what duties her function encompasses. AP Photograph/Elaine Thompson
four. Make clear Breanna Stewart’s ambassador function
The league supplied Stewart, final season’s MVP of the common season and the WNBA Finals, the possibility to be an “ambassador” this season after she suffered an Achilles tendon harm enjoying abroad in April.
Nevertheless it nonetheless is not clear precisely what her function is. Stewart may not totally know. She has accomplished a couple of tv interviews however in any other case hasn’t actually talked to the media. It’s comprehensible that she is rehabbing a severe harm, and that takes a whole lot of time. However what does being an envoy entail?
Will she be on the All-Star Sport in Las Vegas later this month in a meet and greet with followers? Is she principally going to do clinics with youngsters? Is she assembly with sponsors or potential sponsors? Some or all of that?
WNBA interim president Mark Tatum mentioned in Might that the ambassadorship take care of Stewart is one thing the league expects to have interaction in with different gamers sooner or later. The league previously has employed gamers to do promotional work. However Stewart, who’s getting a wage bigger than what she would have made if she had performed this season, has the title “ambassador.” Engelbert ought to clarify what that actually means.
5. Discuss up the 2020 Olympics
Positive, the Tokyo Video games are a 12 months away. However this Olympic cycle is the anticipated final go-round for WNBA and USA Basketball legends Diana Taurasi and Sue Chicken. There are a number of different WNBA gamers who’ll compete in Japan. Group USA goes for a seventh consecutive gold medal. The game of 3×3 basketball is debuting in these Summer time Video games. So, there’s loads to be enthusiastic about from the WNBA’s perspective relating to the upcoming Olympics.
There are a number of explanation why the U.S. girls’s basketball group actually hasn’t appeared to get its due recognition regardless of all its success. One is probably going simply because they’ve dominated the game a lot for the reason that 1996 Atlanta Video games. But when there was ever a time for the WNBA to do every little thing it will possibly to have fun and promote its Olympians — People and others — it is now. And in promoting the WNBA to extra sponsors, Engelbert can also promote its stars’ dedication to enjoying within the Olympics — and what an enormous deal that also is for them.