WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert: Next 3-5 years crucial for league

“There’s this moment over the next three to five years of women’s sports where we’re going to set the course for the next 30 or 40 years,” Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “But it’s the next three to five years that’s going to determine a long way out, as far as can we be the first women’s sports property to really get a meaningful media rights deal?”

The Las Vegas Aces are crushing opponents and making WNBA history

The league has been adamant about meeting fans where they are, and games can now be found on Ion, Amazon Prime, Twitter, NBA TV, the WNBA app and CBS Sports Network. But the major network deal with ESPN is set to expire after the 2025 season and the WNBA should be in line for a major raise. Viewership numbers have trended upward recently and 2022 was the most watched regular season in 14 years. The postseason saw a 22 percent increase on Disney networks and was the most watched in 15 years. This uptick is not just centered on the WNBA, as the NCAA tournament set records for the national championship, Final Four, Elite Eight and Sweet 16.

These are data points the league intends on exploiting in the next round of negotiations, which are expected to heat up next year.

“Coupled with globalizing the game, coupled with the momentum coming out of the NCAA, it’s all kind of going to be a nice story for us and a nice narrative as we support much bigger media rights fees in the next round,” Engelbert said.

In the meantime, the conversation over teams traveling commercially has returned to the forefront after Brittney Griner was confronted at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport by a right-wing social media personality who berated her about her release from a Russian prison. Griner said the incident was “rock bottom” for the league.

The players association maintains that chartered flights are a safety issue first and foremost.

“It’s a shame that it had to get to rock bottom, because I feel like waiting for something to happen and then making a change … you don’t know what that ‘something’s’ going to be,” said Griner, according to ESPN. “We’ve all seen what can happen in this world. And when you play the ‘let’s-wait-and-see game,’ you’re really playing with fire. You’re playing with people’s lives.”

There continues to be differing viewpoints on the situation. Griner was traveling with the Phoenix Mercury on a commercial flight, but the league insists…