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WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has been in the spotlight for about a year as she navigated the league through a stressful collective bargaining agreement before the start of the 2026 season.
Engelbert addressed the media Monday night as the WNBA Draft was set to take place. She raised eyebrows among journalists and fans on social media with an answer to a tough question she received.
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WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks at the WNBA basketball draft in New York on April 13, 2026. (Pamela Smith/AP)
Asked about her future as commissioner, she responded by playing the gender card.
“I’m stating how everyone’s focused on me and you should be focused on the hundreds of amazing women and thousands of women who run this league outside of myself,” she said, via USA Today . “I appreciate that you’re focused on me too. I wonder if you’d ask a man that, by the way, but I realize that as women we get asked different questions than men do.”
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WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks before the WNBA basketball draft in New York on April 13, 2026. (Pamela Smith/AP)
Some social media users, including columnist Jemele Hill, agreed that she would have been asked the same question if she were a man.
Engelbert is in an exclusive club of female commissioners of professional sports. Jessica Berman is the commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League. Meanwhile, commissioners in every other league face tough questions during their own press conferences at key points of the year.
But Engelbert received the brunt of the criticism going into the CBA negotiations. The players called on the league to pay its players more in a demonstration during the WNBA All-Star Game.
Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier blasted the WNBA for having the “worst leadership” at the end of the 2025 season.
Yet Engelbert is still the commissioner of the WNBA through the latest CBA. She added Monday night that the CBA still needs to be finalized.
She also said the league was looking forward to the future and hoped the league would be able to take the WNBA overseas, whether it’s a regular season or exhibition game.
UCLA center Lauren Betts poses with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being selected fourth overall by the Washington Mystics in the first round of the WNBA draft on April 13, 2026, in New York. (Pamela Smith/AP)
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“We’re looking at it a lot,” Engelbert said. “Of course, we have the FIBA World Cup this year. Next year, we expect that we will do something outside of North America as a true global game.”
