Search firm vetting commissioner candidates

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the league is still working on finding her successor with a search firm in charge of the process. Engelbert announced last month that she’d retire at the end of the calendar year.

“I’m met with the search firm and been getting updates periodically as they start to reach out to potential candidates,” Engelbert said before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Saturday. “I had candidates that I submitted, a lot of us did, and a lot of people have called. So the good news is, there’s people who really want to take on this role, which I think is great.”

“It’s like a multi-dimensional role. You have to have very thick skin,” Engelbert said. “So I say that’s one characteristic you have to have. And, you have to have confidence that we can continue this growth trajectory and confidence and building relationships with players and agents and the Board of Governors, the owners and the stakeholders. So it is a multi-dimensional role.”

Engelbert is the second-longest tenured WNBA president or commissioner, and she helped negotiate a lucrative collective bargaining agreement this past spring that ushered in the league’s first set of million-dollar player salaries.

That growth has been accompanied by a series of headline-grabbing distractions for the league under her leadership, especially in the past year. She had a strained relationship with the players during the contract negotiations, and the 2026 season has been dominated by controversies surrounding officiating and debate of transgender people in sport along with a large amount of social media backlash against WNBA participants.

Engelbert didn’t address any of those in her final state-of-the-league speech other than to say that the league needs to continue to support the players against the social media vitriol.