It seems like everybody wants the WNBA to expand. Everybody, that is, except the WNBA itself. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has continued to pour cold water on the rising heat to grow the league beyond its current 12-team size, where the league has been for 15 years and counting. Engelbert has turned the expansion process into some strange form of a running joke. In the last year alone, statements from the commissioner have moved the timeline from 2024 to 2025 to 2025-ish to declining to update the timeline for fear of being wrong. She has also made a moving target out of the number of cities under consideration, saying the league was considering up to 100, then 20, then 10, only to go back to 20 this month. Engelbert reasons that the change to slow-playing expansion, instead of focusing on stabilizing the league fiscally, was the right decision. “I have a philosophy that we needed to have more transformation of the league economics because the last thing we want to do is bring new owners in who are going to fail,” Engelbert said last month. “I think it was the right one because I think the valuations are going up for all of our teams and all of our assets … So I am so glad we didn’t rush it.” Now, it seems like the league has stabilized its finances. Bloomberg reported last month that revenue brought in by the league and its teams is set to nearly double in just four years’ time, from about $102 million in 2019 to a projected $180-200 million this year. The WNBA is also finding more money for its television rights, with The Next reporting that the league’s three-year deal with ION for a package of Friday night games is worth $13 million a year. That will surely help supplement the extremely undervalued
ESPN deal, which will only pay the league $33 million in 2025, its final year. The increased revenue numbers seems to show the business is growing and has certainly led many to advocate for expansion, including Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer, her former star Haley Jones, who was drafted sixth overall by the Atlanta Dream last month, and others in the WNBA. Larger media rights deal + expansion = more teams, more spots, charters, pension… — Breanna Stewart (@breannastewart) May 17, 2023 The league just sold out a preseason game in
Toronto and is also looking into Nashville, Philadelphia and Portland for expansion. But the most interest for a team seems to be here in the Bay Area, and two ownership groups — the Warriors in San Francisco and the African
American Sport and Entertainment Group (AASEG) in Oakland — have stated their hope to land a team. VanDerveer said last month that it’s “crazy” that the Bay Area doesn’t already have a WNBA team here. Engelbert agrees, saying recently that it “doesn’t seem right” that the Bay is lacking a WNBA team. So what’s the holdup? Engelbert may have given away that answer in a response to a different question on another hot-button issue across the league: roster limits. Currently, teams can roster a maximum of 12 players (many choose to only roster 11). With only 144 openings available across the league, a WNBA roster spot is perhaps the hardest to secure in U.S. professional sports – not even first-round picks are guaranteed spots in the league. Would expanding each team’s roster by one be a way to allow for more women’s
basketball players to make a career out of the sport? Engelbert cited expansion as a potential solution, despite the fact that she’s continued to push that prospect indefinitely into the future. “I think for now the roster sizes are set for this season into next, but that’ll be for sure a discussion in the next round of collective bargaining, as will a variety of other issues,” Engelbert said last month. “And I think with expansion on the horizon, my personal view is to give 12 to 24 and hopefully more roster spots will be something obviously that expansion will afford us. “So, to do something shorter term with roster size for the 12 teams versus bringing in 24 new players or opportunities for 24 players, I think [the latter] is the right answer.” To translate commissioner speak to English, adding an extra roster spot for each team isn’t the preference, but adding two new teams is. (Although, “Why couldn’t the league do both?” is a fair question.) When asked for clarity, a WNBA spokesperson said that league expansion was not something tied to collective bargaining and could happen at any time. But could Engelbert have accidentally revealed a piece of the league’s strategy? Sure, the WNBA as a league would benefit from expanding and adding two teams. But the WNBPA would benefit from the added roster spots, too — more players on teams means more players in the union. The league seems willing to hold off expansion to use as a bargaining chip for the next CBA, with the current one not expiring until after 2025 at the earliest. And to be clear, the current salary structure underpays the players in the league. The most a WNBA player can make in 2023 is $234,936, a figure top players can more than double while playing for top teams overseas in the WNBA offseason. It’s even less for rookies like Jones, who will make $71,300 in her rookie season and will only see marginal increases in the first four years of her career. Related Articles Golden State Warriors | Why Bob Myers decided it was time to step away from Warriors Golden State Warriors | Who will replace Bob Myers as Warriors general manager? Golden State Warriors | Scottie Pippen: Michael Jordan was ‘horrible player’ and ‘horrible to play with Golden State Warriors | Bob Myers will resign as Warriors’ president, GM Golden State Warriors | Important offseason looms for Jonathan Kuminga — whether he returns to the Warriors or not Is the league really stunting its own growth to withhold a bargaining chip against changes to the salary structure or roster construction, either of which would result in increased costs? Or maybe the better question: what other reason could be holding expansion up? After all, the league seems fiscally stronger than ever. And even if the thought was to wait for the media deal to expire after 2025, expanding by two (or four) teams ahead of that expiration would only increase the inventory of games for the WNBA to sell to teams. I wanted to ask Engelbert what her message would be to Bay Area fans disappointed that they don’t have a team now — and likely won’t have one for several more years. The WNBA didn’t make the commissioner available to this news organization despite several overtures. As she starts her fifth year as the WNBA’s commissioner, Engelbert no longer will just get credit for saying she and the league are looking into expansion or hope to expand by a certain date. Now, expansion is a simple yes-or-no question. And based on Engelbert’s word salad, the answer will be no for the next several years.