WNBA FINALS: MINNESOTA VS. NEW YORK

October 10, 2024

Cathy Engelbert

Commissioner Press Conference

CATHY ENGELBERT: Welcome to Game 1 of the WNBA Finals. I'm excited to be here in New York City as the Liberty take on the Minnesota Lynx.

As you all know, the Liberty and Lynx were the two best teams in the WNBA all year, with both at the top of the standings for much of the season. The Liberty, one of the league's original franchises, are making their second straight Finals appearance and looking to win their first WNBA championship. Obviously, they won the Commissioner's Cup the other year (2023). The Lynx, one of the most decorated franchises in WNBA history, are looking to win a league-record fifth title and are appearing in a record seventh Finals. They're looking to become the second team to sweep both the Commissioner's Cup and the WNBA Finals trophy.

With Napheesa having such a career year, along with the play in New York with Sabrina and Stewie and the storylines about Leonie Fiebich, her first year in the league, All-Rookie Team, and free-agency signings in Minnesota with Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith and so many more storylines, I'm just excited to get this tipped off.

The Finals mark the culmination of what I think is the most transformational year in the WNBA's history. You saw all the statistics we put out: viewership, attendance, merch sales, digital engagement at or near record levels. To put it in perspective with a few stats that bring insight into what has happened, the WNBA has significantly outpaced the industry in average consumption of live games in 2024. Fans watched 30 percent more minutes on average of each WNBA game in the 2024 regular season.

Our games reached a record 54 million viewers in the 2024 regular season. Younger, more diverse audiences are imperative to the growth of the sports industry, and they flocked to the WNBA this season. Viewership by fans under 35 increased 211 percent, led by a 259 percent increase in viewership from Gen Z and millennial women.

Our focus on our direct-to-consumer platforms led to record-breaking content consumption and repeated fan engagement. WNBA App downloads surpassed 1 million this year, and monthly active users skyrocketed 252 percent. Social engagement increased nearly 300 percent across all of our league channels. There was an astounding 872 percent increase in WNBA App story views, which I know I watch my kids watching all the little stories that we put out there.

Last time we gathered for the Finals, in 2023, we had just announced the Golden State expansion franchise. Since then, we have announced two more expansion teams to begin play in 2026, Toronto and Portland, with one more team to begin play by no later than the 2028 season, to get us to 16 teams.

This summer we signed a groundbreaking media rights deal that will grow the economics of our league and expand the reach and accessibility of our game for our fans, with additional WNBA media deals to come.

As you know, early in the season, after seeing the growth trajectory we were on and with a challenging game footprint given the Olympics, we implemented full charter flights for the entire season plus playoffs.

This growth has not come without growing pains. The hateful speech and threats directed at our players are troubling. That type of conduct is not representative of the WNBA's character or fan base. As a league, we stand united in condemning racism and all forms of hate. The WNBA is one of the most inclusive and diverse professional sports leagues in the world, and we will continue to champion those values.

We'll meet with the Players Association, the players, teams. We'll work together to expand and enhance our efforts and are going to approach this multidimensionally, utilizing technology, prioritizing mental health, reinforcing physical security and increasing monitoring. We know there's more work to be done, and as a league, we are fully committed to listening to the players and other stakeholders on this and other important issues.

Finally, before we get to your questions, we have some news to announce: Starting next year with the 2025 WNBA season, the WNBA Finals presented by YouTube TV will be a best-of-seven format, replacing the current best-of-five format. The Finals will take on a 2-2-1-1-1 structure, in which the team with the higher seed will host Games 1, 2, 5 and 7, and its opponent will host Games 3, 4 and 6. This will give our fans a championship series format that they are accustomed to seeing in other sports.

We will also be changing our first round to a 1-1-1 setup for the best-of-three series. We have contemplated both these changes since the pandemic. We would have done it in the current year, but with the Olympic break this year, it wasn't possible. But now that we have charters throughout the season and playoffs, it's feasible. So to summarize, in 2025 we will have a best-of-three first round, five in the semifinals and seven in the WNBA Finals.

In addition, the 2025 regular season will increase from 40 to 44 games per team. Honestly, the league's growth and increased demand for WNBA basketball made this the ideal time to expand the schedule, lengthen the Finals and provide fans more opportunities to see the best players in the world compete at the highest level.

I also want to take the opportunity to let you know that the WNBA Draft Lottery 2025 presented by State Farm will be broadcast on Sunday, November 17, at 5 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.

With that, I want to thank you for your coverage this year. It really has made a difference. I really am very grateful to be standing here as the commissioner of a league that has been through so much. To have you all in this room and reporting on this league as you have all year, very grateful for that.

With that, happy to answer any questions.

Q. If I could take you to a little bit about what you said about the racism and sexism and the issues that this league faced this year, it's not a simple answer for you guys. What can you tangibly do? Because a lot of it is online trolls who hide behind a keyboard as opposed to someone saying something in the stands. What can you guys do to help the players not have to deal with what they've dealt with this year?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, first of all, there's no place in sports for this. Just continue to condemn it, continue to be a voice on this. Also, I think we have been already meeting with some technology providers. I think there are some technology solutions out there that we could deploy and employ. Of course, we want to meet with the players and see what they want to do around that. But there are some technology companies we've been meeting with to see what we can do. It just is something where we have to continue to be a voice for this, a voice against it, condemning it, and making sure that we find every opportunity to support our players, who have been dealing with this for much longer than this year, by the way. I think Sue Bird said that the other day very eloquently. We need to continue to see how we can support the mental health resources, physical security, cybersecurity.

We're going to attack it, as I said, multidimensionally. We're going to try to figure out how we can best work with the players as to how they want us to help solve this issue.

Q. With the expansion of the playoffs and 44 regular-season games, can you tell us maybe a little bit of what you guys have thought in terms of the parameters of the season and does it start a little earlier, go a little later, and even if there's back-to-back games in cities that you do to try to help with the compression of the schedule and travel?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, well, next year we do not have any international competition. No FIBA World Cup and no Olympic break, so we should have a nice footprint. It's hard to start much earlier because we obviously have the college season. The college draft is such a great feeder system into the WNBA and creates a lot of excitement, as you've seen over the past few years and probably since the league started.

I think probably not starting much earlier. Certainly we're well into October by the time we finish the Finals, especially if we go to five games this year, next year seven. So we'll probably go a little bit later in October.

But again, we'll have a decent footprint next year to fit in the 44. Remember, we have an additional team joining next year, in Golden State Valkyries. So I think it'll be great. We'll have obviously the condensed Commissioner's Cup a few weeks, culminating in that championship, as well.

I think next year will be a good footprint. We'll have to look at the following year because that is the FIBA World Cup year. Obviously, we'll be good in 2027, and then it'll be LA '28. It's a constant balancing of the schedule. I think we feel very good about where we'll be next year, for sure, on the footprint.

Q. Given as you announced the date of the draft coming up in just a month, and we haven't gotten specifics yet, do you believe that an expansion team should have the opportunity to be involved in the draft lottery?

CATHY ENGELBERT: So that date in November was draft lottery, not the draft. Yes.

The Golden State Valkyries will pick fifth in each round. The lottery picks will be the four (teams) that you probably have already done the calculations on, but we'll obviously put a release out after this press conference on exactly that, and then the Golden State Valkyries will have the fifth pick in each round.

Q. You've said that globalization of the game is a priority for you now that you've checked off most of expansion and charters. I wondered what does that mean to you? Do you think the prioritization rule needs to be revisited? Should the W be playing preseason games internationally in places besides Toronto? What does that look like?

CATHY ENGELBERT: It's a good question on what's next as it relates to our globalization platform. Obviously, we played Toronto, we played in Edmonton. That was kind of our Canada series. Now we'll have a team in Toronto starting in '26. Sure, we'd like to play in more places -- EMEA, Asia, Africa, Latin and South America, I know Mexico City has shown interest, as well as a variety of other cities across the world.

Obviously, I was in Paris for the Olympics this year. Thought it was amazing, the support for women's basketball there. I'll never forget on the Friday night when Belgium played France in the women's game. I'd say that was the best crowd that I saw watch a game there. Obviously, a lot of Belgians could drive there to Paris.

It was great to see the growth of the game globally. I think our players represent such great role models to those communities in lifting women. I've admired what the NBA has done with their Global Games platform, playing around the world. I think we'll be on a path there as we get into 2025 and beyond.

Q. What about prioritization?

CATHY ENGELBERT: That will be something I'm sure in collective bargaining that we'll sit down with the players and Players Association. I think one thing that you noticed in the last year or two, particularly this year, a lot of our veterans were in camp, training camp. Obviously, they have to show up by May 1, and I think it was important. I think you saw the quality of the game in the first few weeks because of that. I also think you saw the quality of the Commissioner's Cup play, which is toward the front half of the season to give that some more relevance. Again, I'm sure it'll be something we continue to discuss and talk about.

Q. To build off the question about prioritization, I'm just curious what you know about how some of these international club teams have adapted to prioritization and in particular what's gone on in Turkey.

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, so again, we work with FIBA. We're working with all the constituents on how we can make this all work, where they can have vibrant, competitive seasons. We can have our vibrant, competitive season.

Obviously, some have moved their dates to end earlier to make sure that those vets -- remember, our prioritization rule does not apply to rookies in their first couple years, but for those vets to come over and play in the best league in the world.

But we have a good relationship with FIBA. Working through with them. And again, I think in 2025 -- that's another impediment to starting earlier, to the question about starting earlier, not only the college draft and college season going into the beginning of April, we need to have a training camp, but also the Euro leagues, as well, play into April now, into May.

I think on balance, I think we all want to grow the game globally. I think it's going to come down to footprints and seasons and how we can do it, which is why most of what we're doing in expanding our season will be on the back end.

Q. With the potential opt-out date coming up for the CBA, do you expect the Players Association to opt out and have you been discussing with owners the prospect of that happening?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, absolutely. We're always scenario planning around a variety of different outcomes. Certainly, I engage with Nneka and Terri throughout the year, every month, every other week during the season. I really respect the player leadership. I think this is going to be an opportunity to listen to one another and take this league to the next level for generations to come.

I look forward to building the future of the league and sitting down with the players. Whether they opt out, not opt out. I suspect that given the transformation of the league that we've been working so hard on, building this long-term economic model, we've already returned to the players through charter, through increasing playoff bonuses a couple years ago by over 50 percent. So we'll continue to do that, and when we get to the bargaining table we'll continue to talk about the issues that are most important to the players.

We actually look forward to engaging in that now that we've kind of gotten the media deal we discussed, corporate partners, just everything. There's virtually not a sporting event you can turn on where one of our players is not in an ad spot. That was not happening five years ago. Look at Aliyah Boston and Sabrina and A'ja and so many of our players in these ad spots. I think that's a good sign, too, as we think about the future of this game and the future of the agreement between the Players Association and the owners.

Q. With the increased attention this year, there's also been increased scrutiny about the quality of refereeing. I'm curious if there has been any conversation about whether it's referee pay, referee training, anything to ensure that is as good as it can be?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, one thing that as a very long-term sports fan I know is that officiating and refereeing is always at the top of the fan's list, of the media's list. Obviously, we work hard on training. We work hard on consistency. Obviously, not every -- they're humans.

Looking at technology, basketball is a little more complex than tennis, for instance, around technology, of officiating. We're looking at a variety of different dimensions, but we'll continue training. We have a lot of veteran officials. You'll see them out here working the Finals. But we always know there's always work to do, always get better. We review in our Competition Committee meetings, officiating and points of emphasis and things like that.

We'll caucus with Bethany Donaphin, our head of league operations, and our referee operations, as well. We'll caucus to make sure we're putting out the best officiating we can.

But I know it's a passionate issue. Every fan group -- I love when I go into market and every fan group I meet with, they usually wait and ask it as the last question of the night. But they do ask about officiating, which I appreciate the passion for that.

Q. In the most recent NBA CBA, NBA players were granted the ability to invest in WNBA teams. Have any NBA players invested in any WNBA franchise or at least expressed interest to you in acquiring a stake in a franchise? And Unrivaled is obviously providing equity stakes to players participating. Is that something the WNBA would ever consider, granting active players an equity stake?

CATHY ENGELBERT: So on your first question, we do hear from NBA players who are very interested in investing in WNBA teams. There's a lot of capital inflow coming into women's sports, as many of you are hearing and reading, and obviously we were one of the first and only to raise at the scale we did, $75 million back in 2022. We brought in former NBA players into that capital raise and former WNBA players into that capital raise. So yes, we do get interest from time to time.

Now, the NBA investments by those players is in independent teams, not in NBA-affiliated teams. So if you're still playing for an NBA team, you probably want to invest in the WNBA team with your affiliate, and you can't do that until you graduate, I'll call it, or retire from basketball. So we have a lot of interest from that perspective.

Then again, we want to listen to the players as to how they want to think about anything that we go to the bargaining table on, whether that's equity stakes or other issues that they might be interested in. We're certainly willing to listen. I think it is complicated when you have a Players Association versus the league versus the owners who are all small businesses, right. Well, 13, now we'll have 15 to 16, and they're each individual businesses. I think it's a little more complicated because there's no one equity stake. Like Unrivaled, it is one league with equity stake in, and it's not teams. We've got 12, soon to be 16, teams in a league. So it's a little more complicated, I think.

Q. At some of the recent expansion announcements you've detailed the commitments that these ownership groups are making in their teams, and I think in doing so just implicitly set the standard, what the new standard is for what it takes to be a WNBA owner. It seems like that standard is higher than it ever has been for obvious reasons, to the point where I wonder if certain existing ownership groups do not meet that standard, and if they hypothetically came to you and described their current situation, but did so as an expansion bid, maybe they would not be awarded a team.

You've said that the free-agent market, some of that stuff will just incentivize owners to invest, but is there ever a point where the league would step in and mandate certain facility requirements or arena availability requirements and even things that maybe would be less on the player experience side like staffing, business side staffing, front office staffing?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, it's certainly something that we look at for all of our teams every year, as well as you mentioned the expansion teams. I think my comments on the expansion teams were you want to make sure the expansion owners know, when you come into the league, it's a competitive league. Free agency is competitive now, and all of our owners are investing. You see investing in practice facilities and other player experiences. I think we want those expansion teams to come in and be the most successful they can.

I think, you may have a different view, but I think our current owners are all growing in the same direction as far as how they know they need to get free agents to build a championship squad. Obviously great rookies, too, become veterans later on.

I don't have a bias against any one team. Obviously, we have teams playing in different size arenas. You saw some teams upgrade those arenas for certain games this year, and I thought that was a sign and signal that as has attendance had a grown across the league that we can play in bigger arenas. I think when I came into this league, someone said you should all be playing in 5,000-seat arenas. Can you imagine what you're going to see out here tonight if that was in a 5,000-seat arena? No, there's going 17,000-plus people here. And we had our highest-attended game ever, over 20,000, in Washington this year.

I think we do have standards, by the way, across the board for facilities, practice facilities and things like that. The owners now know that there's an edge to showing a player investment in the things like facilities, et cetera, especially practice facilities.

I was in Phoenix for the All-Star Game this year taking a tour of their new practice facilities that they opened. Vegas has done it, Seattle has done it, Dallas is going to do it. I think Phoenix I mentioned, and Chicago is looking at upgrading. I think all of our -- we already had some great practice facilities already in the league in Indy, Minnesota, et cetera, and here in New York.

I think, again, there's no -- we do have standards, but there's nothing where we're saying any one owner is not up to their standards today.

Q. Last month the 76ers said on the record that they have been engaged with the league on the process of bringing an expansion team to Philadelphia. I was hoping you'd say whether that's true. And I realize I've asked you similar questions before, but I was hoping since they've said something if you'd say whether that's true, and if it is or isn't, by when do they have to have everything tied up, done, sealed, given the arena situation that they have, if '28 is when that expansion might stop after that for a while? When working backward from that does everything have to be done and sealed by?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, so just in general for the 16th spot, as I've mentioned, the good news is we have a lot of demand from many cities. I'd say 10 or so, maybe even plus at this point, because I think the more people are watching the WNBA and seeing what we're growing here and seeing these players and the product on the court, more people are interested in having it in their cities. They see the economic impact of having a WNBA team in their city, the role model in the community these players represent.

So I've said Philly is on the list, and Philly is on the list. Now that we have the three teams, two in '26, one next year, we're not in a huge rush. We'd like to bring it in in '27 or no later than '28, as I mentioned. So I'd say there's 10 to 12 cities that are very viable that we're evaluating, and we have a process. I'd say I don't have a deadline by which we have to name it because it'll be out to '27 or '28, but I would think in the next couple months or so we'll start -- now as we get into the offseason, we'll start taking a look at those that will go to the top of the list through our process.

Again, it's all the same types of things I've been talking about for the other three around arena, practice facility, player experience, committed long-term ownership group, city, demographics, psychographics, Fortune 500 companies based there. All the things we've been looking at in all of our cities and our data analysis. And then we've built some good relationships with some of the potential cities as they've started to engage with the league on an expansion team.

Q. As you know, we are a majority Black women's league and at this point there's only one Black head coach. I'm asking if there's any strong consideration for a Black-led ownership group for the last expansion team when you award one?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, I think if you look at the diversity of when we did our capital raise, you'll see a fair amount of diversity in the ownership group we brought in there, investor group.

Obviously, we talk with our owners all the time about diversity in the coaching ranks, in their front office, back office, et cetera. You see every year we score very well in our report on that.

We have a lot of assistant coaches that have been previous WNBA players and represent a very diverse group, as well. We have all of our owners partnering with minority-owned businesses. We partner at the league with Mielle, who is one of our newer partners. Playa Society. I think one of our teams just got a Partake Foods jersey patch; that's a minority-owned business.

We're looking at it from all these angles, partnerships, ranks of our employee base and certainly the coaching diversity and coaching, as well. So it is important to us. There's not a Board of Governors meeting that we don't talk about this. As you know, we've made enormous progress especially in the assistant coaching ranks with former WNBA players by essentially focusing on this over the last couple years. Made enormous progress, which is why our report card is really good.

But it's something that you can never rest on, so I appreciate the question. We've had a couple coaches exit, so I think we have three open coaching spots. Obviously, the Golden State Valkyries announced their first head coach in their franchise history today. We have three open coaching spots. So we'll certainly be looking for our owners to have a diverse pool of candidates, and ultimately they'll make the decision on their head coaches.