Participant, fan experiences amongst prime priorities for commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Mechelle VoepelespnW.com
CloseMechelle Voepel covers the WNBA, ladies’s school basketball, and different school sports activities for espnW. Voepel started protecting ladies’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.
LAS VEGAS — Cathy Engelbert sounded extra like a tactician than a cheerleader for the WNBA, and that was a great factor.
How Engelbert spoke was as essential as what she stated at this previous weekend’s All-Star Sport, her first official occasion as new WNBA commissioner. Enterprise-focused robust management is what the league wants. However there nonetheless must be a responsiveness to some long-running frustrations of gamers and followers.
Engelbert formally took over on July 17, so detailed solutions about particular points weren’t anticipated throughout her information convention forward of Saturday’s All-Star Sport. WNBA followers have been searching for proof of eagerness to deal with info gathering and drawback fixing. As former CEO at Deloitte, the place she labored for greater than three many years, Engelbert needed to be adept at each.
Saturday, she boiled down her focus within the WNBA to what she known as “Three pillars: fan expertise, participant expertise and economics.”
“If we work on these from a league perspective,” Engelbert stated, “and in working with the house owners of the groups and the gamers, I believe numerous the opposite issues that folks complain about can be solved.”
Engelbert steps into the job simply because the league and the gamers’ union are negotiating a brand new collective bargaining settlement that must be in place earlier than the 2020 season.
It was notable the league despatched out a launch about these talks final Thursday night time: “Earlier right now, the WNBA and WNBPA held a complete and productive assembly relating to the Collective Bargaining Settlement. We’re inspired by the discussions and look ahead to extra conferences within the close to future.”
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Clearly, that does not say a lot. But the general public acknowledgement of the discussions in the course of the All-Star break was a optimistic signal for a league that generally fails to speak.
From the gamers’ perspective, higher journey experiences and their day-to-day consolation degree as elite athletes are priorities, together with wage points. Excessive journey delays — journeys with mechanical and/or climate delays taking 24 hours or extra — occurred to the Aces final season and the Fever this season. However even the common journey day within the WNBA may be taxing, particularly issues like gamers caught in center seats on prolonged industrial flights. Constitution flights for all journey aren’t seemingly anytime quickly, as they’re price prohibitive. However having the choice to constitution for a restricted variety of journeys, in addition to getting higher seats and lodging for coach journey, might assist considerably.
“Inside participant expertise is well being and wellness, in addition to clearly the journey situation,” Engelbert stated. “So I’m going to work tirelessly on this specific situation, whether or not it must be negotiated throughout the CBA, or we’ve got flexibility to take a look at enhancing the participant expertise, significantly the journey expertise.”
A few of the gamers have had preliminary conversations with Engelbert, and their suggestions is optimistic.
“We’re simply attending to know her now,” stated Sparks ahead Nneka Ogwumike, president of the gamers’ union. “We’re actually excited to have her on board.”
Mystics ahead Elena Delle Donne, one of many All-Star Sport captains, stated, “I believe she’s acquired that enterprise thoughts that we have to assist change issues and actually take a giant subsequent step. She appears tremendous assured and prepared.”
A part of Engelbert’s information convention was additionally about USA Basketball’s enhanced coaching program for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is not a WNBA-managed program, however eight WNBA gamers are dedicated to being out there for 5 coaching segments that may happen from November 2019 to April 2020 and embody exhibition video games towards school groups.
The WNBA can profit from the visibility and advertising across the gamers being in america a lot of the winter, fairly than taking part in abroad or not competing in any respect. The U.S. crew is searching for its seventh consecutive Olympic gold medal.
An announcement Saturday outlined a coaching program with USA Basketball and the WNBA. Available, from left, have been WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, USAB director Carol Callan, WNBA legend Daybreak Staley and gamers Sue Chook and Diana Taurasi. Brian Babineau/NBAE by way of Getty Photographs
Making an attempt to extend visibility for the WNBA is two-fold: The league seeks to try this each nationally/internationally and domestically. There was extra success with the latter, and a few franchises get extra recognition of their native markets than others.
The All-Star Sport in Las Vegas was an instance: Aces proprietor, MGM Resorts Worldwide, had signage at Mandalay Bay and different resorts on the Strip promoting the sport. Typically, the Aces — in simply their second season in Las Vegas — have moved excessive on the record relating to participant expertise and advertising.
However in contrast to the NBA, the place there is a degree of billionaire sameness amongst house owners, the WNBA has disparity in that regard. The WNBA groups owned by corporations like MGM, or by NBA groups, have deeper pockets than different groups.
That reality has a wide-ranging impression, past how a lot a franchise might spend to placed on an All-Star Sport. It impacts points such because the relative lack of participant motion in free company, because of the “core” participant designation and different restrictions that primarily work to maintain stars long run on the groups that draft them. There’s some good in that, nevertheless it additionally has produced some stagnation. And it largely prevents the WNBA’s free company from being newsworthy — a stark distinction to the NBA.
Engelbert stated she would go to all 12 WNBA franchises earlier than the playoffs start in early September. There’s quite a bit to absorb, as groups have totally different strengths and weaknesses primarily based on geography, historical past, possession standing and fan base, amongst different issues.
“This is likely one of the issues clearly I did in my prior life,” Engelbert stated, “with the ability to look throughout quite a lot of corporations and convey finest practices in to be sure that, in our case with the 12 franchises, we’re all thriving.
“And in the end that we’re sharing what does and would not work. Some practices will not work in some markets. The NBA has numerous success, and we’re leveraging off that functionality within the W, as effectively.”
The NBA and WNBA are in fully totally different locations, although, and Engelbert should maintain that in thoughts. That stated, the NBA wasn’t all the time the self-perpetuating advertising large it’s now.
Finding out what helped the NBA develop after which straight making use of it to the WNBA will not essentially work, although. There nonetheless must be an understanding of the obstacles that girls’s sports activities typically face in acceptance. But in addition, optimistically, that consciousness may be paired with enthusiasm to domesticate potential fan bases that is perhaps much less served by different professional leagues: the LGBTQ group, businesswomen who confront their very own glass-ceiling challenges, households searching for inexpensive leisure choices, as an example. Equally, the WNBA can also use its gamers’ off-court qualities — most are school graduates, and a number of other have entrepreneurial pursuits together with proudly owning companies and actual property — to lure sponsors.
“I believe we’ve got a novel alternative to supply our property as a platform to firms for partnerships, sponsorship,” Engelbert stated. “And actually use that platform to boost the range, inclusion and dialog in society.
“One of many causes I took this job, fairly frankly, is I noticed big potential and momentum because it pertains to the model of this sport, of this league, of those ladies and their tales.”
Engelbert will do her job by speaking up the WNBA, definitely. However backing that up with actual motion is how she will actually distinguish herself. And it is precisely what the WNBA wants.