April 24, 2025 • 22 mins
From being the first-ever female CEO of a Big Four consulting firm, Deloitte, to being appointed commissioner of the Women’s National Basketball Association in 2019, Cathy Engelbert says basketball ran in her DNA — so it seemed like a natural next step in her career. Under her leadership, the WNBA has seen significant growth in viewership, sponsorships, and media deals. In an episode of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations, she discusses her turnaround strategy for the league, her hopes to further expand and globalize the game, and why it’s worth investing in women’s sports. This interview was recorded on March 25 at NBA Headquarters in New York.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
In recent years, one of the most popular new sports
leagues has been the Women's National Basketball Association. I had
a chance to sit down recently with Kathy Engelberg, who's
the commissioner of the WNBA, to ask her how she's
helped to transform the WNBA into a very popular sport.
Let's talk about the WNBA as a business and make
sure I understand how many teams are there.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So starting the season, there'll be thirteen teams. We had
twelve for a long time. Thirteen teams on our way
to sixteen or more.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Who's the new team?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The new team is in the Bay Area, the Golden
State Valkyries, and they're going to kill it this year
off the court for sure, and on the court they'll
be They had an expansion draft, so it'll be interesting
to see.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hey, so you have thirteen teams. Are you planning to
expand to more now?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah? So we've announced team fourteen and fifteen in Toronto
and Portland, and we have a process right now for
additional teams where we have a lot of demand and
a lot of ownership groups around the country interested.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Each team has how many players?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Twelve twelve players?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You've got one hundred and forty four professional players.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, one, fifty six this year fifty six.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Okay, So today the league is well known for having
some stars like Caitlyn Clark among others Angel Rees as well.
Is that kind of competition between Angel Rees and Caitlin
Clark helping your TV ratings? And is that worked out
well for you to have Caitlin Clark in the league.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You know, when I came into the league. People watch
sports for three basic reasons, for rivalries, for games of consequence,
and for household names if you know the players, and
we didn't have a lot of household names, even though
we had amazing players back then and have amazing players
beyond Caitlin and Angel. So rivalries are generally good for
sports and women's sports. Sometimes it's complicated by the social
(01:44):
media vitriol, which we did announce. It's terrible what some
of these players have to endure. And so the hatred,
the vitriol, the misogyny, the homophobia, the racism, there's no
place for it in sport, and we like to be
known in sport as a big uniter. So that's the
negative part of that. But the positive certainly has been
that people are watching. I mean we brought tens of
(02:06):
millions of new people into our sport last year because
this rivalry came out of college.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, well, take Caitlyn Clark. She was very famous at
the University of Iowa, and she came into the league
and she had more attention probably than anybody who came
in as a rookie, Rookie of the Year, and so forth.
But it seemed as if she was getting beaten up
a little bit or being treated relatively roughly. Why would
the other players who would see that she's making the
league more visible and more profitable, why were they kind
(02:32):
of giving her a rough time.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I think that that narrative became the narrative. But
I think, you know, we have a really exciting, fast paced,
physical game. The physicality I think surprised a lot of
the new fans that came in games pretty physical in college.
But then when you come to WNBA and it's all
the great players from the best colleges in one place,
one hundred and forty four of them last year with
our twelve teams, we're expanding now, so I think it
(02:56):
was very physical at first for a lot of new
eyes on the game. I think there were unfortunately some
inappropriate plays that happened. But over the course of the
whole season, I think Caitlin really adjusted well, so did
Angel because Angel was very physical for her at first two.
And I think all of our rookies or Kia Jackson
and Cameron Brink got heart early in the season. But
(03:16):
you know, they all adjusted to the physicality of our game,
and I think our fans didn't adjust as quickly, and
then that narrative kind of got away from us.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Now, recently, Adam Silver, the head of the commissioner of
the NBA, negotiated on behalf of the NBA and the
w NBA a contract, a TV contract for many years
that was said to be worth roughly seventy six billion
dollars over some period of time, and you get part
of that as I understand it. So were you happy
with that arrangement.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yes, we actually negotiated our own deal, but along when
you partner and what I call go to market with
the NBA. The NBA and WMBA are the only two
major professional sports in the US that have essentially opposite seasons.
Were made to October. They're October to June, but April
is the end of their regular season, so we could
provide think about the disruption and the media landscape from
(04:04):
linear to streaming to subscription models, and we together with
the NBA can provide over three hundred and twenty plus
days of programming, So we hit all twelve months for
programming for a streamer, even if it's NBC and Peacock
er Amazon, So it was a huge advantage. We're much
more valuable going to market with them on this deal
with NBC and ABC, ESPN, Disney as well as Amazon,
(04:27):
So that was a huge positive for us and we
had a great deal. It's historic for women's sports.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
How long is the contract fork.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So that contract's eleven years?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Eleven years and you get two to three billion of
that something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, exactly. But after three years we have an option
to renegotiate around the price of that if we keep growing,
because we've grown the league enormously just in a couple
of year period, so we after three years have an option.
We also have the option to enter an additional media
rights deals. I call them our Trench two deals, and
we're in the process of negotiating those.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
So you have an option after two or three years
to negotiate presumably a higher price. Yes, did they have
an option to negotiate a lower price? No?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I think it's an option to take a look at
the growth of the league, and if we continue on
the growth trajectory, it's to provide more value, especially because
ultimately that value goes to the players.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So today, how are your TV ratings compared to the
NBA or your assume a fraction of it, but how
do you compare or do you get ten percent of
what they get?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Twenty last year we had an unbelievably historic year. Our
average was at one point two million, huge increase over
prior years.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Two million people watching watching.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Average average some games TV linear. We would peak in
the US, a US only number, that's not a global number.
We have a lot of global fans too, and that's
an untapped area of growth for US. But we continue
to look at a huge increase in that viewership. I
mean even our draft at peak last year, over three
million people watch the WNBA Draft. Last year our All
(06:02):
Star Game over two million people. These were all time records.
And remember we don't necessarily compare ourselves with the NBA
or other men's sports. They've been around the NBAS in
their seventy eighth year. NFL, NHL, and MLB are all
over one hundred years old. We're going into our twenty
ninth season this year, so these comparisons to men's league
are tough, but certainly where we are today, I never
(06:24):
thought we'd have as high viewership as we had last year.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It's often the case that these players have to fly
commercial historically. Now, as a result of your new arrangement,
you can afford to have and every team can afford
to have a kind of a special.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Jet or a charter program.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Is that part of the deal.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Now, Yes, It's something we've been working on since I
came into the league. We've been chipping away at it.
We offered it during certain games previously years ago, chipping
away at it for full playoffs two years ago, and
then last year because I knew where we were tracking
for the media rights. But we needed to build an
economic model to fundness. It wasn't just like you wave
(07:03):
a wand and you can give a twenty to thirty
million dollar benefit to someone through charter travel. So I
felt very confident, our owners felt confident that we had
been building an economic model to sustain it over the
long term. Because it also can't be you just offer
it for a year or two. We need to think
about it for decades. That we were able to afford it,
and so I felt good about that and we did
(07:23):
it outside of collective bargaining cycle.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Now, the NBA has something called a salary cap, and
I guess a salary floor. Do you have a salary cap?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yes, we do. We have a hard cap under the
current CBA. Obviously that CBA will be up after this
year and we'll be negotiating a new deal.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You've done quite well, But there's any team profitable at
this point by normal profitability standards.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, I think our teams are making enormous progress towards profitability.
They're just growing. But what they're doing, which we love,
is because they have so much confidence in the growth
trajectory either turning around and anything, they might be making
their investing back. We have at least six teams who
are now have built, are building new practice facilities. They're
working on a lot of different things to invest in
(08:06):
the player experience because our free agency has become such
an important part of building a roster to win a championship.
So they're all taking the upswing in attendance gate for them,
corporate partnership money for them, and they're investing it back
in the business today.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
How many owners of w NBA teams are women?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, again, we have NBA affiliated owners, independent owners, We
have an all women ownership group, three women up in Seattle.
We have diverse ownership at the minority investor level. Obviously
all the NBA teams are primarily owned by men, but
we're making some progress there with diverse ownership groups. And again,
(08:46):
as we look at expansion, we look for the diversification
of that group.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
So in college basketball, the average game or the game
is how long in terms of length of time?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
So again in women's they have four quarters forty minutes.
We played four quarters forty minutes in professional or in
professional then yeah, if you pay four quarters forty minutes
forty minutes total each quarter is ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yes, okay? And today is that likely to change or
the rules going to change any way shape or form
that you know?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, I don't think, you know. One of the things
when I came in I assessed kind of the strategy
and the quality of the game, and the importance of
the brand. And the one thing that when I looked
at the game. There's not much to tweak about the game.
I mean, pure shooting, pick and rolls, great rebounding, great play.
People who we've brought in those tens of millions and
new fans love the game. So I don't think there's
(09:38):
much to tweak in the game. And we use more technology,
can officiating you know, advance and evolve, yes, But the
game itself, I think the quality of the game was something.
You know, it's probably the only thing we didn't need
to actually pick up a stone and totally change.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Let's talk about your own background for a moment. Where
are you from.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I'm from Philadelphia and you were born there. Yeah, born
in Philadelphia, grew up in right across the bridge in
southern New Jersey and one of eight kids. I have
my brothers.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I'm an only child, so I don't know what that's like.
What is it like to have seven siblings.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, it's crazy, especially five brothers three older, so I
was their fourth and everything from whiffleball to soccer, to hockey,
street hockey to basketball. Grew up very athletic family, very competitive,
like my sister and I would compeach you and I
are only thirteen months apart, compete for everything, including food,
and we'd hide food in our rooms because the brothers
would steal all the food. So it was a fun upbringing.
(10:32):
Continues to be very close knit family.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Oh what did your father do to support a family
of eight children?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So my father worked for RCA and was an IT
guy and early like we used to have the punch cards,
he'd bring punch cards home, an early it kind of manager.
Unfortunately died young in nineteen eighty seven. But my mom
worked for sixty two years for the same place for
a pediatrician as their office manager as that business grew.
So you know, both my parents worked, and my mom, though,
(11:02):
you know, was able to balance it all and raise
eight children on the way.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
You were an athlete in high school? Yes, and what
sports did you play?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So? I actually played tennis, basketball on lacrosse in high school,
and I was recruited for lacrosse in college. I was
a walk on for basketball. Back in the mid eighties,
you could play two sports in college at a D
one level. Today you can't do that, But back then
I played both lacrosse and basketball.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So you were the captain of both teams. Yes, you're
playing two sports and eventually you have to graduate. So
you graduate, and you said, I want to be in
sports or I want to be going to Deloitte.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Well, actually it all dates back to sophomore year when
I was a computer science major and I had to
take a programming course in Fortran and I said, I
have no idea what that professor's talking about. Someone said,
there's this thing called the Business School, Cathy, you should
transfer to it. And there's something called accounting and it's
the language of business, and you'll get a job. Because
(11:57):
it was the big eight accounting firms back then, so
I didn't know who said it was the language of business.
I found out later that was Warren Buffett, and you'll
get a job. I got a job pretty easily back
then and started with Deloitte.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
In those days, I can't imagine that women were being
seen as potential CEOs of big accounting firms. So as
you imagine when you started you would be the CEO.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
No, because I think at the partner ranks when I started,
it was probably five percent women partners, so it was
pretty new, you know, as far as the trajectory for women.
Never thought that I would be the CEO. Never aspired
to be the CEO quite frankly, but your specialty was what?
So my specialty back then was I worked in a
variety of clients, growing up manufacturing snls back during the
(12:43):
SNL crisis. Bank I settled more once I had my kids,
in the pharmaceutical sector as well as consumer products. But
I was a derivative financial instrument specialist at the firm,
which gave me tons of tons of valuation expertise.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
You were the CEO of Deloitte, which is one of
the largest service providers in the United States and accounting,
an audit firm, among other services, and you did that
quite well for quite a while, and all of a
sudden you're approached by the WNBA about being the commissioner.
What made you think you would want to do that
and what made them think that you could do that?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, it's an interesting question. So it didn't seem to
make a lot of sense to a lot of people
unless you had come to my office at Deloitte and
saw basketballs all behind me. So I played college basketball
for now Naysmith Hall of Fame coach Muffett mcgahol, who
went on too great success at Notre Dame. I went
to Little Lehigh University and my father was actually drafted
into the NBA in nineteen fifty seven by the Detroit Pistons.
(13:42):
So we had a lot of basketball DNA in the family.
And so when I was my term was ending at Deloitt,
I really said, you know, what do I want to
do next? I want to do something different, something with
the broad women's leadership platform and something I had a
passion for, thinking maybe it would take me to a
college or university. And then someone coach me about the
WNBA commissioner job, and I said, definitely is something different,
(14:05):
broad women's leadership platform and certainly a game. I have
a huge passion for the game.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
How long had you been the CEO of Deloitte?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So I'd been at delott for over three decades, thirty
three years, and I'd been the CEO for a little
over four year terms four years. I took over a
little earlier than usual and then your terms up and
it's time to move on. And could have stayed at
Deloitte senior partner, but really wanted to do something in
kind of a second act and this was it.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And did you stay connected to sports by playing on
weekends or anything? Like that, or you didn't have time.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
For that, not really raising two kids, you know, having
a career. I did coach my daughter's travel basketball team
from middle school during middle school. I stay connected that way,
but just a big fan of sports.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
So now, how many years have you been the commissioner?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Five and a half so almost six now.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Any regrets about taking the job.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
No regrets at all. This was a really good fit
for me personally, professionally, and just enjoy the game so much.
I could go to a game every day and it's
just been a total transformation of a league that was
just surviving five six years ago and now thriving.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So what do you do outside of the job you
have now? Are you any corporate boards or this is
what you're doing full time?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Or no? I am on corporate boards. That was one
of the things that was important to me, given my
long history at Deloyd. So I'm on the board of McDonald's.
And one of the reasons I wanted McDonald's was not
necessarily because I love Hamburgers, although I do. I want
to be consumer brand because now I'm running a consumer
brand called the WNBA, and it's been helpful to see
their digital their consumer base their globalization and everything. And
(15:41):
then I'm on the board of Royalty Farmer, which is
a public company as well, and then I play. My
passion now is golf.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So I don't play golf because it's too humiliating to me.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It's a hard game. I took it up when I
became the CEO of Deloitte. So I was fifty when
I took it up. And it was because I would
be in CEO's offices and they would be talking golf
or they'd have golf decorations in their office. I'd ask
them about it. Do you play? I played a little
bit and then started playing a lot and got pretty
good at it and got invited to the at and
(16:13):
T Pebble Beach Pro Am and the American Express. And
now I just love being in that environment with all
my former CEO colleagues. And it's a lot of fun now,
but it isn't great. And I tell a lot of
women take up golf, you know. It's a great way
to build relationships in the corporate world.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Recently, in spring training, I went into a batting cage
and they found the picture who could throw the ball
between three and four miles an hour as slow as possible,
and I actually hit a couple of ground balls to
everybody's amazement. Do you ever go on the court and say, well, look,
I played at Lee High. I was a star there.
Let's have a little shoot around.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You ever do that all the time? I passed by
in the practice facilities or as I'm walking in arena
the rack of basketballs, and I'm like, and I'll usually
have heels on, so it's a little challenging, but I'll
always take a ball and shoot a few, and the players,
I think it does give you a little credit that
you played the game, not at the level they're playing at,
but playing for Muffett McGraw and Nasmith Hall of famer.
My dad played for Jack Ramsey, doctor Jack, who was
(17:08):
a Naismith Hall of Famer. So just having a little
bit of that basketball DNA is helpful.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
In the NBA, many of the stars, now not all,
but many of the stars come from Europe or other
places outside the United States. Do you have many players
coming from outside the United States.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
We've got players from Germany, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, Africa. Yeah,
so we're starting to globalize our ranks. But they're not
quite where the NBA has been, again the NBA being
fifty plus years older than US, but it's starting to increase.
And I think the US's dominance in the Olympics. The
women just won their eighth consecutive gold medal in basketball
(17:45):
in the Paris Olympics, and I think that dominance has
helped lift other programs around the world, such as France
almost the only lost by two to the US. So
a lot of these programs around the world have invested
in their grassroots and youth football such that they're getting
really good.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And today, when you were trying to get sponsors, is
it much different for the teams to get sponsored much
easier than it used to be, or the the league
negotiate sponsor deals, or each team does its own sponsor deal.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Both. We have national league sponsor deals, we have global deals,
and then there's local deals for teams to negotiate as
long as it doesn't block a category at the national level.
And so one of the things that's so interesting to
me when I came in the league, and I didn't
know this because I was off at Deloitte in a
very different industry, is that someone told me my first
day on the job that less than one percent of
(18:36):
all corporate partnership money spent on sports is women's sports.
And my first question David, as a good prior accountant,
was what's the denominator? Because if we were to move
that a couple hundred basis points, how much do we
have to move the numerator? And I would say we've
moved that significantly up probably to ten percent or so.
But the denominator's huge. Obviously, it's multiple, multiple tens of billion.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Women's sports are the two biggest known or best known
women's sports, I would guess in the United States in
terms of professional leagues are soccer or what was called
football outside of the United States, and basketball. Yes, is
there a third that's coming up as softball?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, well certainly the WMBA. We're the longest tenured women's
professional sports league at twenty nine years now, double any
other so, and part of that's due to our big
brother of the NBA and everything they've done for us.
And then it's soccer, and then the PWHL is a
new hockey league that has emerged and they've had a
lot the hockey's had a lot of fits and starts,
(19:35):
has had soccer. We're blessed to have had continuity over
twenty nine years. But I think there's some emerging sports
like volleyball, but they're the problem is there's four professional
volleyball leagues, so they probably need some consolidation.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
If you look back on what you achieved today, what
are you most proud of having achieved today?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Definitely the growth, you know, the you know, getting through
the pandemic. I mean if it was pretty existential for
us during the pandemic, we hadn't started our season yet
because remember pandemic was March when Adam Silver shut down
the sports world by shutting down the NBA play then
the NCAA's shut down. So getting through that pandemic year
I'm probably most proud of. It was like working on
(20:14):
an IPO for a couple of weeks. Because I had
just come in the league. I didn't have a lot
of relationships. We had to convince the players to play
that we would keep them safe. We were at a
time of racial crisis in America with the George Floyd situation.
We got thrown in the middle of the political battle
in the state of Georgia with one of our owners,
so there was so much going on in that twenty
twenty years, so I think I'm proud of the way
(20:36):
we emerged from that, such that just a year later,
in February of twenty two, we were the first women's
sports property to raise capital at scale seventy five million dollars.
We probably could have raised more.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
What do you consider the biggest single challenge for the
WNBA going forward?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I would say, you know, we have several challenges and
several opportunities. One of our biggest challenges is certainly how
do we globalize this game. There's a lot of opportunity
outside the United States to build fandom, to build viewership,
to make our players global stars. We continue to be
challenged by being a women's league and therefore and a
(21:10):
diverse one. So therefore we continue to be challenged around
the vitriol in social media against our players and the league.
So we're working on a four prong strategy on that,
around a technology solution to help with the social media side,
monitoring physical safety, and mental health. So that's another challenge,
but enormous opportunity as well in the league around so
(21:31):
many areas. Expansion would be one of those. A lot
of capital inflows coming into the league finding places to
invest that.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So if somebody said to me, you have a chance
to invest in a women's NBA team, w NBA team
new One, should I take that chance or should it
to still a risky investment?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Now, I think as you look at our new media deal,
you look at the growth, You look at the quality
of the game, the strength of the brand, what it represents.
Would I wish three four years ago I had invested
in it, but obviously I couldn't as the commissioner. But yes,
that's why we raised that capital three four years ago.
Those people who invested in us back then were believers
(22:12):
in the future, and I think, you know, they're all
going to be pretty happy, So yes, I would invest.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
wherever you listen.
In recent years, one of the most popular new sports
leagues has been the Women's National Basketball Association. I had
a chance to sit down recently with Kathy Engelberg, who's
the commissioner of the WNBA, to ask her how she's
helped to transform the WNBA into a very popular sport.
Let's talk about the WNBA as a business and make
sure I understand how many teams are there.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So starting the season, there'll be thirteen teams. We had
twelve for a long time. Thirteen teams on our way
to sixteen or more.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Who's the new team?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The new team is in the Bay Area, the Golden
State Valkyries, and they're going to kill it this year
off the court for sure, and on the court they'll
be They had an expansion draft, so it'll be interesting
to see.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hey, so you have thirteen teams. Are you planning to
expand to more now?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah? So we've announced team fourteen and fifteen in Toronto
and Portland, and we have a process right now for
additional teams where we have a lot of demand and
a lot of ownership groups around the country interested.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Each team has how many players?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Twelve twelve players?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You've got one hundred and forty four professional players.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, one, fifty six this year fifty six.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Okay, So today the league is well known for having
some stars like Caitlyn Clark among others Angel Rees as well.
Is that kind of competition between Angel Rees and Caitlin
Clark helping your TV ratings? And is that worked out
well for you to have Caitlin Clark in the league.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You know, when I came into the league. People watch
sports for three basic reasons, for rivalries, for games of consequence,
and for household names if you know the players, and
we didn't have a lot of household names, even though
we had amazing players back then and have amazing players
beyond Caitlin and Angel. So rivalries are generally good for
sports and women's sports. Sometimes it's complicated by the social
(01:44):
media vitriol, which we did announce. It's terrible what some
of these players have to endure. And so the hatred,
the vitriol, the misogyny, the homophobia, the racism, there's no
place for it in sport, and we like to be
known in sport as a big uniter. So that's the
negative part of that. But the positive certainly has been
that people are watching. I mean we brought tens of
(02:06):
millions of new people into our sport last year because
this rivalry came out of college.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, well, take Caitlyn Clark. She was very famous at
the University of Iowa, and she came into the league
and she had more attention probably than anybody who came
in as a rookie, Rookie of the Year, and so forth.
But it seemed as if she was getting beaten up
a little bit or being treated relatively roughly. Why would
the other players who would see that she's making the
league more visible and more profitable, why were they kind
(02:32):
of giving her a rough time.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I think that that narrative became the narrative. But
I think, you know, we have a really exciting, fast paced,
physical game. The physicality I think surprised a lot of
the new fans that came in games pretty physical in college.
But then when you come to WNBA and it's all
the great players from the best colleges in one place,
one hundred and forty four of them last year with
our twelve teams, we're expanding now, so I think it
(02:56):
was very physical at first for a lot of new
eyes on the game. I think there were unfortunately some
inappropriate plays that happened. But over the course of the
whole season, I think Caitlin really adjusted well, so did
Angel because Angel was very physical for her at first two.
And I think all of our rookies or Kia Jackson
and Cameron Brink got heart early in the season. But
(03:16):
you know, they all adjusted to the physicality of our game,
and I think our fans didn't adjust as quickly, and
then that narrative kind of got away from us.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Now, recently, Adam Silver, the head of the commissioner of
the NBA, negotiated on behalf of the NBA and the
w NBA a contract, a TV contract for many years
that was said to be worth roughly seventy six billion
dollars over some period of time, and you get part
of that as I understand it. So were you happy
with that arrangement.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yes, we actually negotiated our own deal, but along when
you partner and what I call go to market with
the NBA. The NBA and WMBA are the only two
major professional sports in the US that have essentially opposite seasons.
Were made to October. They're October to June, but April
is the end of their regular season, so we could
provide think about the disruption and the media landscape from
(04:04):
linear to streaming to subscription models, and we together with
the NBA can provide over three hundred and twenty plus
days of programming, So we hit all twelve months for
programming for a streamer, even if it's NBC and Peacock
er Amazon, So it was a huge advantage. We're much
more valuable going to market with them on this deal
with NBC and ABC, ESPN, Disney as well as Amazon,
(04:27):
So that was a huge positive for us and we
had a great deal. It's historic for women's sports.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
How long is the contract fork.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So that contract's eleven years?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Eleven years and you get two to three billion of
that something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, exactly. But after three years we have an option
to renegotiate around the price of that if we keep growing,
because we've grown the league enormously just in a couple
of year period, so we after three years have an option.
We also have the option to enter an additional media
rights deals. I call them our Trench two deals, and
we're in the process of negotiating those.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
So you have an option after two or three years
to negotiate presumably a higher price. Yes, did they have
an option to negotiate a lower price? No?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I think it's an option to take a look at
the growth of the league, and if we continue on
the growth trajectory, it's to provide more value, especially because
ultimately that value goes to the players.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So today, how are your TV ratings compared to the
NBA or your assume a fraction of it, but how
do you compare or do you get ten percent of
what they get?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Twenty last year we had an unbelievably historic year. Our
average was at one point two million, huge increase over
prior years.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Two million people watching watching.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Average average some games TV linear. We would peak in
the US, a US only number, that's not a global number.
We have a lot of global fans too, and that's
an untapped area of growth for US. But we continue
to look at a huge increase in that viewership. I
mean even our draft at peak last year, over three
million people watch the WNBA Draft. Last year our All
(06:02):
Star Game over two million people. These were all time records.
And remember we don't necessarily compare ourselves with the NBA
or other men's sports. They've been around the NBAS in
their seventy eighth year. NFL, NHL, and MLB are all
over one hundred years old. We're going into our twenty
ninth season this year, so these comparisons to men's league
are tough, but certainly where we are today, I never
(06:24):
thought we'd have as high viewership as we had last year.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It's often the case that these players have to fly
commercial historically. Now, as a result of your new arrangement,
you can afford to have and every team can afford
to have a kind of a special.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Jet or a charter program.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Is that part of the deal.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Now, Yes, It's something we've been working on since I
came into the league. We've been chipping away at it.
We offered it during certain games previously years ago, chipping
away at it for full playoffs two years ago, and
then last year because I knew where we were tracking
for the media rights. But we needed to build an
economic model to fundness. It wasn't just like you wave
(07:03):
a wand and you can give a twenty to thirty
million dollar benefit to someone through charter travel. So I
felt very confident, our owners felt confident that we had
been building an economic model to sustain it over the
long term. Because it also can't be you just offer
it for a year or two. We need to think
about it for decades. That we were able to afford it,
and so I felt good about that and we did
(07:23):
it outside of collective bargaining cycle.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Now, the NBA has something called a salary cap, and
I guess a salary floor. Do you have a salary cap?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yes, we do. We have a hard cap under the
current CBA. Obviously that CBA will be up after this
year and we'll be negotiating a new deal.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You've done quite well, But there's any team profitable at
this point by normal profitability standards.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, I think our teams are making enormous progress towards profitability.
They're just growing. But what they're doing, which we love,
is because they have so much confidence in the growth
trajectory either turning around and anything, they might be making
their investing back. We have at least six teams who
are now have built, are building new practice facilities. They're
working on a lot of different things to invest in
(08:06):
the player experience because our free agency has become such
an important part of building a roster to win a championship.
So they're all taking the upswing in attendance gate for them,
corporate partnership money for them, and they're investing it back
in the business today.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
How many owners of w NBA teams are women?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, again, we have NBA affiliated owners, independent owners, We
have an all women ownership group, three women up in Seattle.
We have diverse ownership at the minority investor level. Obviously
all the NBA teams are primarily owned by men, but
we're making some progress there with diverse ownership groups. And again,
(08:46):
as we look at expansion, we look for the diversification
of that group.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
So in college basketball, the average game or the game
is how long in terms of length of time?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
So again in women's they have four quarters forty minutes.
We played four quarters forty minutes in professional or in
professional then yeah, if you pay four quarters forty minutes
forty minutes total each quarter is ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yes, okay? And today is that likely to change or
the rules going to change any way shape or form
that you know?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, I don't think, you know. One of the things
when I came in I assessed kind of the strategy
and the quality of the game, and the importance of
the brand. And the one thing that when I looked
at the game. There's not much to tweak about the game.
I mean, pure shooting, pick and rolls, great rebounding, great play.
People who we've brought in those tens of millions and
new fans love the game. So I don't think there's
(09:38):
much to tweak in the game. And we use more technology,
can officiating you know, advance and evolve, yes, But the
game itself, I think the quality of the game was something.
You know, it's probably the only thing we didn't need
to actually pick up a stone and totally change.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Let's talk about your own background for a moment. Where
are you from.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I'm from Philadelphia and you were born there. Yeah, born
in Philadelphia, grew up in right across the bridge in
southern New Jersey and one of eight kids. I have
my brothers.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I'm an only child, so I don't know what that's like.
What is it like to have seven siblings.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, it's crazy, especially five brothers three older, so I
was their fourth and everything from whiffleball to soccer, to hockey,
street hockey to basketball. Grew up very athletic family, very competitive,
like my sister and I would compeach you and I
are only thirteen months apart, compete for everything, including food,
and we'd hide food in our rooms because the brothers
would steal all the food. So it was a fun upbringing.
(10:32):
Continues to be very close knit family.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Oh what did your father do to support a family
of eight children?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So my father worked for RCA and was an IT
guy and early like we used to have the punch cards,
he'd bring punch cards home, an early it kind of manager.
Unfortunately died young in nineteen eighty seven. But my mom
worked for sixty two years for the same place for
a pediatrician as their office manager as that business grew.
So you know, both my parents worked, and my mom, though,
(11:02):
you know, was able to balance it all and raise
eight children on the way.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
You were an athlete in high school? Yes, and what
sports did you play?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So? I actually played tennis, basketball on lacrosse in high school,
and I was recruited for lacrosse in college. I was
a walk on for basketball. Back in the mid eighties,
you could play two sports in college at a D
one level. Today you can't do that, But back then
I played both lacrosse and basketball.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So you were the captain of both teams. Yes, you're
playing two sports and eventually you have to graduate. So
you graduate, and you said, I want to be in
sports or I want to be going to Deloitte.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Well, actually it all dates back to sophomore year when
I was a computer science major and I had to
take a programming course in Fortran and I said, I
have no idea what that professor's talking about. Someone said,
there's this thing called the Business School, Cathy, you should
transfer to it. And there's something called accounting and it's
the language of business, and you'll get a job. Because
(11:57):
it was the big eight accounting firms back then, so
I didn't know who said it was the language of business.
I found out later that was Warren Buffett, and you'll
get a job. I got a job pretty easily back
then and started with Deloitte.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
In those days, I can't imagine that women were being
seen as potential CEOs of big accounting firms. So as
you imagine when you started you would be the CEO.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
No, because I think at the partner ranks when I started,
it was probably five percent women partners, so it was
pretty new, you know, as far as the trajectory for women.
Never thought that I would be the CEO. Never aspired
to be the CEO quite frankly, but your specialty was what?
So my specialty back then was I worked in a
variety of clients, growing up manufacturing snls back during the
(12:43):
SNL crisis. Bank I settled more once I had my kids,
in the pharmaceutical sector as well as consumer products. But
I was a derivative financial instrument specialist at the firm,
which gave me tons of tons of valuation expertise.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
You were the CEO of Deloitte, which is one of
the largest service providers in the United States and accounting,
an audit firm, among other services, and you did that
quite well for quite a while, and all of a
sudden you're approached by the WNBA about being the commissioner.
What made you think you would want to do that
and what made them think that you could do that?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, it's an interesting question. So it didn't seem to
make a lot of sense to a lot of people
unless you had come to my office at Deloitte and
saw basketballs all behind me. So I played college basketball
for now Naysmith Hall of Fame coach Muffett mcgahol, who
went on too great success at Notre Dame. I went
to Little Lehigh University and my father was actually drafted
into the NBA in nineteen fifty seven by the Detroit Pistons.
(13:42):
So we had a lot of basketball DNA in the family.
And so when I was my term was ending at Deloitt,
I really said, you know, what do I want to
do next? I want to do something different, something with
the broad women's leadership platform and something I had a
passion for, thinking maybe it would take me to a
college or university. And then someone coach me about the
WNBA commissioner job, and I said, definitely is something different,
(14:05):
broad women's leadership platform and certainly a game. I have
a huge passion for the game.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
How long had you been the CEO of Deloitte?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So I'd been at delott for over three decades, thirty
three years, and I'd been the CEO for a little
over four year terms four years. I took over a
little earlier than usual and then your terms up and
it's time to move on. And could have stayed at
Deloitte senior partner, but really wanted to do something in
kind of a second act and this was it.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And did you stay connected to sports by playing on
weekends or anything? Like that, or you didn't have time.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
For that, not really raising two kids, you know, having
a career. I did coach my daughter's travel basketball team
from middle school during middle school. I stay connected that way,
but just a big fan of sports.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
So now, how many years have you been the commissioner?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Five and a half so almost six now.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Any regrets about taking the job.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
No regrets at all. This was a really good fit
for me personally, professionally, and just enjoy the game so much.
I could go to a game every day and it's
just been a total transformation of a league that was
just surviving five six years ago and now thriving.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So what do you do outside of the job you
have now? Are you any corporate boards or this is
what you're doing full time?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Or no? I am on corporate boards. That was one
of the things that was important to me, given my
long history at Deloyd. So I'm on the board of McDonald's.
And one of the reasons I wanted McDonald's was not
necessarily because I love Hamburgers, although I do. I want
to be consumer brand because now I'm running a consumer
brand called the WNBA, and it's been helpful to see
their digital their consumer base their globalization and everything. And
(15:41):
then I'm on the board of Royalty Farmer, which is
a public company as well, and then I play. My
passion now is golf.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So I don't play golf because it's too humiliating to me.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It's a hard game. I took it up when I
became the CEO of Deloitte. So I was fifty when
I took it up. And it was because I would
be in CEO's offices and they would be talking golf
or they'd have golf decorations in their office. I'd ask
them about it. Do you play? I played a little
bit and then started playing a lot and got pretty
good at it and got invited to the at and
(16:13):
T Pebble Beach Pro Am and the American Express. And
now I just love being in that environment with all
my former CEO colleagues. And it's a lot of fun now,
but it isn't great. And I tell a lot of
women take up golf, you know. It's a great way
to build relationships in the corporate world.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Recently, in spring training, I went into a batting cage
and they found the picture who could throw the ball
between three and four miles an hour as slow as possible,
and I actually hit a couple of ground balls to
everybody's amazement. Do you ever go on the court and say, well, look,
I played at Lee High. I was a star there.
Let's have a little shoot around.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You ever do that all the time? I passed by
in the practice facilities or as I'm walking in arena
the rack of basketballs, and I'm like, and I'll usually
have heels on, so it's a little challenging, but I'll
always take a ball and shoot a few, and the players,
I think it does give you a little credit that
you played the game, not at the level they're playing at,
but playing for Muffett McGraw and Nasmith Hall of famer.
My dad played for Jack Ramsey, doctor Jack, who was
(17:08):
a Naismith Hall of Famer. So just having a little
bit of that basketball DNA is helpful.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
In the NBA, many of the stars, now not all,
but many of the stars come from Europe or other
places outside the United States. Do you have many players
coming from outside the United States.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
We've got players from Germany, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, Africa. Yeah,
so we're starting to globalize our ranks. But they're not
quite where the NBA has been, again the NBA being
fifty plus years older than US, but it's starting to increase.
And I think the US's dominance in the Olympics. The
women just won their eighth consecutive gold medal in basketball
(17:45):
in the Paris Olympics, and I think that dominance has
helped lift other programs around the world, such as France
almost the only lost by two to the US. So
a lot of these programs around the world have invested
in their grassroots and youth football such that they're getting
really good.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And today, when you were trying to get sponsors, is
it much different for the teams to get sponsored much
easier than it used to be, or the the league
negotiate sponsor deals, or each team does its own sponsor deal.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Both. We have national league sponsor deals, we have global deals,
and then there's local deals for teams to negotiate as
long as it doesn't block a category at the national level.
And so one of the things that's so interesting to
me when I came in the league, and I didn't
know this because I was off at Deloitte in a
very different industry, is that someone told me my first
day on the job that less than one percent of
(18:36):
all corporate partnership money spent on sports is women's sports.
And my first question David, as a good prior accountant,
was what's the denominator? Because if we were to move
that a couple hundred basis points, how much do we
have to move the numerator? And I would say we've
moved that significantly up probably to ten percent or so.
But the denominator's huge. Obviously, it's multiple, multiple tens of billion.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Women's sports are the two biggest known or best known
women's sports, I would guess in the United States in
terms of professional leagues are soccer or what was called
football outside of the United States, and basketball. Yes, is
there a third that's coming up as softball?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, well certainly the WMBA. We're the longest tenured women's
professional sports league at twenty nine years now, double any
other so, and part of that's due to our big
brother of the NBA and everything they've done for us.
And then it's soccer, and then the PWHL is a
new hockey league that has emerged and they've had a
lot the hockey's had a lot of fits and starts,
(19:35):
has had soccer. We're blessed to have had continuity over
twenty nine years. But I think there's some emerging sports
like volleyball, but they're the problem is there's four professional
volleyball leagues, so they probably need some consolidation.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
If you look back on what you achieved today, what
are you most proud of having achieved today?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Definitely the growth, you know, the you know, getting through
the pandemic. I mean if it was pretty existential for
us during the pandemic, we hadn't started our season yet
because remember pandemic was March when Adam Silver shut down
the sports world by shutting down the NBA play then
the NCAA's shut down. So getting through that pandemic year
I'm probably most proud of. It was like working on
(20:14):
an IPO for a couple of weeks. Because I had
just come in the league. I didn't have a lot
of relationships. We had to convince the players to play
that we would keep them safe. We were at a
time of racial crisis in America with the George Floyd situation.
We got thrown in the middle of the political battle
in the state of Georgia with one of our owners,
so there was so much going on in that twenty
twenty years, so I think I'm proud of the way
(20:36):
we emerged from that, such that just a year later,
in February of twenty two, we were the first women's
sports property to raise capital at scale seventy five million dollars.
We probably could have raised more.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
What do you consider the biggest single challenge for the
WNBA going forward?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I would say, you know, we have several challenges and
several opportunities. One of our biggest challenges is certainly how
do we globalize this game. There's a lot of opportunity
outside the United States to build fandom, to build viewership,
to make our players global stars. We continue to be
challenged by being a women's league and therefore and a
(21:10):
diverse one. So therefore we continue to be challenged around
the vitriol in social media against our players and the league.
So we're working on a four prong strategy on that,
around a technology solution to help with the social media side,
monitoring physical safety, and mental health. So that's another challenge,
but enormous opportunity as well in the league around so
(21:31):
many areas. Expansion would be one of those. A lot
of capital inflows coming into the league finding places to
invest that.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So if somebody said to me, you have a chance
to invest in a women's NBA team, w NBA team
new One, should I take that chance or should it
to still a risky investment?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Now, I think as you look at our new media deal,
you look at the growth, You look at the quality
of the game, the strength of the brand, what it represents.
Would I wish three four years ago I had invested
in it, but obviously I couldn't as the commissioner. But yes,
that's why we raised that capital three four years ago.
Those people who invested in us back then were believers
(22:12):
in the future, and I think, you know, they're all
going to be pretty happy, So yes, I would invest.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
wherever you listen.
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