'Beyond repair': Napheesa Collier, Cathy Engelbert and a WNBA teetering on the brink
NAPHEESA COLLIER BARELY slept the night before she wrote the statement that would rock the WNBA.
It was late in the evening on Friday, Sept. 26, only a few hours after the Minnesota Lynx dropped Game 3 of their semifinal series against the Phoenix Mercury. With 26 seconds left in the game and the Lynx down four, Collier had crashed to the floor after a collision with the Mercury's Alyssa Thomas.
An MRI revealed three Grade 2 torn ligaments and a torn muscle in her lower leg. Inside the Phoenician hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona, with pain radiating across her leg, Collier sat to write a withering 4½-minute missive about the state of WNBA officiating and commissioner Cathy Engelbert's leadership and attitude toward players. She planned to deliver it whenever Minnesota's season concluded.
Collier would do this alone: There was no communication or coordination with the players' association, for which Collier served as vice president, sources say.
The general message she planned to deliver had been on her mind for months, sources say, ever since a meeting seven months ago in Miami.
Back in February, sources say Engelbert called a meeting with Collier and her husband, Alex Bazzell, the president of Unrivaled, a startup 3-on-3 league founded alongside Collier that some in the WNBA increasingly believe is becoming competition to the league itself.
On Tuesday, before answering questions from the assembled media, Collier began:
"I'd like to congratulate the Mercury for advancing to the finals. I want to be clear that this conversation is not about winning or losing. It's about something much bigger. The real threat to our league isn't money. It isn't ratings or even missed calls or even physical play. It's the lack of accountability from the league office."
She continued.
"This past February, I sat across from [Engelbert] and asked how she planned to address the officiating issues in our league," Collier said. "Her response was, 'Well, only the losers complain about the refs.' I also asked how she planned to fix the fact that players like [Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers], who are clearly driving massive revenue for the league and are making so little for their first four years.
"Her response was, '[Clark] should be grateful she makes $16 million off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn't make anything.' And in that same conversation, she told me, 'Players should be on their knees, thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.'"
Multiple sources contacted by ESPN said Collier had relayed Engelbert's comments to them within several days of the February meeting.
Then, before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, in her first public appearance since Collier's statement, Engelbert began her news conference with a statement of her own.
"I have the utmost respect for Napheesa and every single player in our league," Engelbert said. "They are at the center of everything we do. I was disheartened to hear that some players feel the league and me, personally, do not care about them or listen to them. And if the players in the W don't feel appreciated and valued by the league, then we have to do better and I have to do better."
She said the league values feedback. She acknowledged that league "stakeholders" -- as she referred to the players on multiple occasions -- are "misaligned" with what they want from officiating. She said that collective bargaining agreement negotiations were ongoing and that the league wants "much of the same things that the players want," including significantly increasing players' salaries and benefits. She said she had exchanged text messages with Collier and planned to meet to discuss the situation next week.
Then, a few minutes later, answering a question specifically about her alleged comments about Clark, she denied ever making them.
Now, that meeting with Collier is off.
The dueling statements between two of the league's most powerful people have overshadowed the Finals at perhaps the most important time in WNBA history. On one side is Engelbert, who has been in charge of the league for a period of unprecedented growth but has lost the trust of players. On the other is Collier, a superstar player deeply involved in CBA negotiations and in a rival league that has become vital to players' offseason income.
With the league's CBA set to expire at the end of the month, they are locked in a battle for public opinion, power and money.
"This is an inflection point for the league," one longtime senior executive told ESPN. "There is a root cause, and it's lack of transparency, lack of trust in the league and the relationship between the players and the league.
"You can get transparency overnight. But trust is not built overnight. And [Engelbert has] lost it. She can't get it back overnight."
Caitlin Clark details why Napheesa Collier's statement highlights a key moment in WNBA history and the league must capitalize on it.
WHAT THIS BREAKDOWN -- and the near universal outpouring of support for Collier from WNBA players -- means for Engelbert's tenure remains very much to be seen.
Engelbert made clear her resolve to maintain her position Friday, an expectation mirrored among the more than a dozen players, coaches, executives, owners and league officials interviewed by ESPN as well.
"She's already unpopular," said one source with knowledge of the CBA talks. "So let her be the bad guy in CBA negotiations, then replace her."
Multiple league sources wondered what would happen if the players who have loudly supported Collier this week, simply refused to negotiate with the league on a new CBA until Engelbert resigned or was replaced.
"The most important people in this entire ecosystem are the players," one executive said. "Lock them out if you want to, but all you're going to do is ensure that Unrivaled becomes the big person on campus as opposed to the W."
It's fair to wonder, of course, whether Collier's comments also serve a larger aim -- to promote Unrivaled, the league she co-founded with her husband and New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart, and push the WNBA publicly in CBA talks.
"It's a total conflict of interest," said a source with knowledge of the situation. "[Collier's] husband runs the league that's in competition with the W, and she has equity in it."
Collier and Stewart are also both on the executive committee of the Women's National Basketball Players Association, which is negotiating with the league on the new CBA.
The executive committee is elected by other players in the league, meaning they are the ones who must decide whether there is indeed a substantive conflict of interest.
Thus far the players who have been asked about Collier's remarks have steadfastly supported her.
"10/10. No notes!" Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese posted on X.
Said Clark: "First of all, I have great respect for [Collier.] I think she made a lot of very valid points. ... This is straight-up the most important moment in this league's history. This league's been around for 25-plus years, and this is a moment we have to capitalize on."
Clark's teammate Sophie Cunningham went further.
"Everything that Napheesa said, we all feel that way, and we're all going to back her," she said. "I think it's pretty shameful that she always makes it about her, Cathy, when it should have nothing to do with her."
"I'm just tired of our league," Cunningham continued. "They need to step up and be better. Our leadership from top to bottom needs to be held accountable."
Aces star A'ja Wilson, who last week won her fourth MVP award, said she was "disgusted" by Engelbert's alleged remarks about Clark and appreciated Collier standing up for the players.
"I'm going to ride with Phee always," Wilson said. "Obviously, she's a business girlie and she has her own stuff going on, but moving forward, we've got to continue to stand on business as we talk about this CBA negotiation."
Unrivaled, which played its first season in January in Miami, has become an important supplement to players' salaries, especially since overseas money and opportunities have decreased in recent years.
Collier and Stewart initially offered the WNBA a small equity share in Unrivaled to show alignment, multiple sources say, but ultimately such a partnership could have violated league rules, and they were turned down.
The WNBA was focused on its own revenue growth, and it was still unclear whether Unrivaled would be viable.
THERE IS VERY little dispute how much the WNBA has grown during Engelbert's tenure. According to a report from Deloitte earlier this year, revenues are projected to top $1 billion this year. ESPN/ABC WNBA ratings hit an all-time high this season, averaging 1.3 million viewers across 25 games. Merchandise sales are up 500% this year, according to the Sports Business Journal. The league invested $50 million in charter flights -- a key initiative for players -- but owners also just got $250 million in expansion fees from three cities, with half a dozen more lined up to pay even more if there are future expansions.
But how much of the credit Engelbert deserves for those gains -- versus the emergence of young stars such as Clark, Reese and Bueckers, rising star power of players such as Wilson, Collier and Stewart, and heightened level of competitiveness across the league -- remains a topic of great debate in league circles.
At the heart of this fall's CBA negotiations -- and the players' simmering frustration with the league -- is why more of those financial gains haven't yet trickled down to the players.
This week, sports economist and professor David Berri wrote in The New York Times that if WNBA players received a similar percentage of "basketball-related income" as NBA players, the top stars should be making more than $3 million a year. Instead, they earn less than 10% of that.
According to sources on both sides of the CBA negotiations, under the current CBA, players don't get additional revenue sharing (9% as opposed to 49%-51% in the NBA) until the league has generated a certain level of revenue, which it says it has yet to do after decades of multimillion-dollar losses at the franchise and league level.
The players want the league to give them data proving those revenue benchmarks haven't been met.
"That's where the trust started to break down," one league source said. "You want to call 'em greedy and unreasonable, but you won't give them the data."
The league disputes this characterization.
"The notion that the WNBA doesn't provide the data supporting the CBA's annual revenue sharing calculation is simply false," a WNBA spokesperson said. "Each year, the league provides the Players Association with audited financial statements of league revenue and a report detailing the resulting revenue sharing calculations. The union also has the right to independently audit league revenue each year."
Engelbert took the job in the middle of CBA negotiations in 2019. She and interim president Mark Tatum, who is Adam Silver's top deputy in the NBA, quickly finished what was then hailed as a transformative CBA because of the added benefits for players.
At the time, Engelbert was hailed for her business acumen after 33 years at Deloitte, a top financial services and consulting firm. An accountant by trade, she had steadily risen through the ranks to become the first woman to be CEO of the firm in 2014. During Engelbert's tenure as CEO, Deloitte's revenue increased 30% to over $20 billion, according to a 2018 Time Magazine profile.
When Silver hired her -- according to The Wall Street Journal she was not renominated for a second four-year term as CEO of Deloitte -- he notably gave her the title of commissioner. The league's previous leaders had all been given the title of president. Engelbert said Friday that it was Silver's idea to empower her with the title.
"Adam has been a great supporter of mine," she said. "He was the one who had the idea to have a commissioner reporting to the board of governors, the owners."
Speaking in 2019 on why the title was changed from president to commissioner, Silver said, "With Cathy's hiring, we wanted to signal to the broadest possible audience that the WNBA is a major league and that she has the same status as the heads of other U.S.-based sports leagues."
Still, multiple sources say they're wondering whether Silver will step in.
Earlier in the year, New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu told the New York Post she has a better relationship with Silver than she does with Engelbert.
"Just knowing players feel comfortable and confident going up to him in the NBA and being able to talk about things like adults and things that are important," Ionescu said. "And I think that needs to be the same for us as well."
HOW THE MEETING between Engelbert and Collier was arranged, and then canceled, mirrors their larger relationship, and Engelbert's difficulty in building relationships with players in general -- an issue she acknowledged in her news conference before Game 1.
In the hours after Collier's injury, Bazzell and Collier's agent each made calls to Engelbert, and the messages they left went unreturned, multiple sources say.
The only person who did connect with anyone close to Collier was Bethany Donaphin, the head of operations for the WNBA, who reached Collier's agent, sources said.
In the subsequent three days, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was suspended and fined for her behavior during the game and postgame comments. Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon and Fever coach Stephanie White were fined for their comments about how the league is officiated and the situation with Reeve. And the top-seeded Lynx were eliminated by the Mercury in Game 4.
After Collier's exit interview, Engelbert issued a statement later that day, saying, in part, "I am disheartened by how Napheesa characterized our conversations and league leadership, but even when our perspectives differ, my commitment to the players and to this work will not waver."
Two days later, on Thursday, sources said that Donaphin left a conciliatory voicemail for Collier, asking if she'd be willing to meet with Engelbert to talk through the situation. Collier said that she would.
Then Engelbert texted Collier directly Thursday evening, sources said, to arrange the meeting Engelbert relayed publicly on Friday.
But when questioned during her news conference about the reports of the private conversation she'd had with Collier in February was relayed, Engelbert said, "There's a lot of inaccuracy out there."
When pressed on whether she had said the quote about Clark that Collier had attributed to her, Engelbert said, "Obviously, I did not make those comments."
Collier cancelled the meeting with Engelbert on Saturday.
Whatever chance, however slim, the two had to mend fences during an in-person meeting was over, one source close to Collier said.
"The end of [the] press conference ... pushed the relationship beyond repair."
And so it is that amid the calls for her resignation and perhaps the most intense round of CBA negotiations in league history, this is Engelbert's situation to solve. And, at least for now, hers alone.
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