Transcript: Cathy Engelbert Press Conference, 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game
WNBA Women's National Basketball Association

Transcript: Cathy Engelbert Press Conference, 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game

July 19, 2025 - Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) News Release


CATHY ENGELBERT: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. As you know, I always start out with thanking you for your coverage because it makes a difference and continues to make a difference.

A great day here as we get ready to tip-off the 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game. Thrilled to be here in Indianapolis, a city that clearly has been buzzing with basketball energy these past few seasons.

I wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you to Herb Simon and Steve and the Simon family, Mel and Kelly and the entire Indiana Fever organization. Their passion and commitment has truly made this All-Star experience unforgettable.

Everybody was involved in a ton of planning around this. Our players, the fans, everybody who loves this game. I want to thank our amazing partners, our All-Star title partner, AT&T. The All-Star presenting partner for WNBA Live. Panini, I actually just came from there. The energy, I was just so impressed. Was incredible. I think it was our best yet. This was an idea a few years ago that was just kind of on the cutting room floor almost. We've really brought WNBA Live to life as an incredible Fan Fest.

Also grateful for our WNBA Changemakers, AT&T, Ally Financial, CarMax, Deloitte, Google and Nike, all of our partners that hosted activations throughout this week. They continue to really help us grow the game in powerful ways. Very grateful for that.

Last night's STARRY® 3-Point Contest, Kia Skills Challenge was great. My mom kept texting me, "This is so exciting" from home.

I want to congratulate Sabrina on capturing her second three-point contest title, scoring 30 points in the final round. That was the second most in our WNBA three-point history, second only to Sabrina's 37 in 2023.

I want to shout out Natasha Cloud on her skills challenge victory, my fellow Philadelphian, a thrilling buzzer-beater to take home the win. Remarkable performances from Sab and Tash. Proud of them.

Tonight the best of the best will take the floor in a showdown between Team Clark and Team Collier. But just congratulations to these incredible players. What they're doing night in, night out, what an outstanding group.

This matchup will feature MVPs, champions, veterans, rising stars and rookies. A clear display of the depth and talent in our league. The three rookies you'll see tonight, Paige, Kiki and Sonia, most rookies featured in the All-Star Game since 2011.

As I was calling them to invite them to tell them they were named as All-Stars, I did not realize the three since 2011. The future of the league looks bright.

I also want to acknowledge a special story with Kayla Thornton in her 10th season. She becomes the first All-Star in Golden State Valkyries history, the first player to represent an expansion franchise in their inaugural season since 2006. She is playing in her first All-Star Game.

We're in for quite a game tonight. You saw our format changes. Off the court, I continue to be inspired by the impact we're making.

We did use All-Star for social impact, hosting various activations and activities. We had a WNBA Changemaker Day. We had more than 300 volunteers participating in a very impactful day at the Indy Motor Speedway. We had Basketball Without Borders, other youth activations.

We launched our first-ever WNBA HBCU Intern Program Presented by Mielle. Six outstanding interns representing various HBCUs joined us this week for a hands-on, behind-the-scenes experience of what it takes to put on event like All-Star.

Then earlier this season, we debuted Line 'Em Up, new initiative that I'm extremely proud of because it's a campaign aimed at bringing The W closer to local communities by painting the WNBA three-point line on parks across the country.

After a successful launch a few weeks ago in New York, we brought the initiative here to All-Star with a Paint the Town Campaign, lining up a bunch of parks across Indy. I think it's pretty cool that young girls and boys now will go to their outdoor courts and be able to see the WNBA line on it.

When we tipped off the 2025 season, I was thinking about this on the flight here the other day, we knew we were riding a wave of momentum. Over the past few months, we've only accelerated it.

The first half of the season has been filled with historic announcements, record-breaking fan engagement, unbelievable play on the court, and bold steps towards the future of our league.

As you all know, we recently announced three new expansion cities: Cleveland in '28, Detroit in '29, and Philadelphia in '30. Growing to 18 teams by the end of the decade.

We're also looking forward to next season when the Toronto Tempo and now the recently branded Portland Fire will officially take the court. This year's debut of the Golden State Valkyries has set the tone for expansion teams to follow from consistent sellout crowds of 18,000 plus to major wins over top-tier teams. The Valks have shown what's possible when a new team enters with purpose, hires great people, they're providing a great blueprint for the future.

Again, reflecting coming into the season, you know I have a mantra every year. This year it was: sustain and gain. Sustain the momentum and gain off of it. That's what we've done.

National viewership is up 23 percent year over year. Attendance is up 26 percent, the highest in decades. We're seeing sold-out arenas becoming routine. I was at Tuesday night's in Boston and Wednesday night's game in New York. Those were playoff atmospheres.

Merch sales have shattered previous records, up 40 percent, driven by rookie sensations coming in this year and veterans.

All-Star Voting Presented by Ally, one of their first activations with us, doubled from last year, up triple digits, 100 percent plus with millions of fans making their voices heard during our All-Stars.

Really proud. When I landed at the airport. It's been my dream for an airport to be branded the WNBA. When I landed here at the Indy airport, my dream came true. There was a ton of branding as you saw as well.

Lastly, I want to share we had a productive meeting on Thursday with the WNBA PA and the players. We're engaged in constructive conversations. I remain confident we'll reach a new CBA, one that's transformational for the teams, players and owners for the future of our league.

Thank you for your continued support and coverage of our league. With that I'm happy to take questions.

Q. Can you talk about the growth of the All-Star Game. Seems to be the biggest one as far as activations and fans. A bunch of players and coaches over the last few days have complained, without being fine worthy, about officiating. I want your thoughts on if officiating is an issue and how can it be improved.

CATHY ENGELBERT: Obviously, the growth of All-Star has been part of our strategy, is to really put on an elite, top-notch sports media and entertainment weekend. I think we've really gotten close this year with all cylinders.

Again, thanks to the Indiana Fever, the Pacers organization for putting on such an outstanding weekend. So I'm really proud. Look no further than tonight, last night, and WNBA Live to give you that.

But it was a lot of the events around it, too. A lot of our partners really are believers in our league, they're supporting us both financially and from a marketing and branding standpoint.

Again, I talk a lot about these corporate partners, but they're so important, media partners, so important to our success as we go forward.

On the officiating, we hear the concerns. We take that input. Every play is reviewed. Spend hours and hours and hours. Obviously, we use that then to follow up with officials, training.

Consistency is important, I think. I think some people observe our game versus other basketball formats, there aren't a ton of fouls called. I realize consistency is the name of the game.

I think it's something we definitely look at and evaluate. There's an independent evaluation of our officials. There are ramifications. So, it's something we need to continue to work on.

As our game has evolved, so does our officiating. We're on it. I know as a fan of sports for 60 years now, I know that no one's ever happy with officiating. All sports deal with it. But we're working hard to make sure we're putting the best product out on the court, and our officiating follows that.

Q. Obviously there is an expansion draft going to come up soon ahead of 2026. To think about the order in which it happens, I'm wondering how much the CBA you hope is signed before there's an expansion draft. Obviously, a lot of teams very curious about how that process will work. Related to it, a lot of the conversation extends beyond just expansion to also questions of roster sizes. Similar questions in the minds of many teams. Take me through whether you think 12 is a sustainable way going forward.

CATHY ENGELBERT: On the first, obviously we'll work through the expansion draft rules because it is something that is collectively bargained. We hope that that collective bargaining process will be finished, then a two-team expansion draft with both Toronto and Portland.

On roster sizes, certainly it's something we'll discuss with the players association. That's also collectively bargained. That is certainly on the list, as well.

Again, we're in listening mode back and forth. There's a process we're going through to listen to all the priorities of the owners, players, and kind of make sure that we're addressing all those as we look to the future of this league.

Q. When talking with players yesterday about how that meeting on Thursday went, some felt there was no progress made, some felt like there needed to be greater urgency to make sure a deal could get done by October. Would you agree with those characterizations? Where would you say things need to go here since there's no in-person meeting scheduled?

CATHY ENGELBERT: There are meetings scheduled moving forward, by the way.

Again, I want to call it constructive. We had candid dialogue. This is part of the process. When I first joined the league actually six years ago on Thursday, I was four days in the job and we had our first collective bargaining meeting at All-Star. I actually think we've had a bunch of meetings already.

I appreciated how many players came to the meeting. I thought that was great. Communication is important. Having that meeting, being at the table, was important with that scale of players.

I would just say we've been through these negotiations many times. This is only my second one, but my team has been through many of them.

Just want to say I really respect the players. We're listening. They're listening to our owners. We're kind of in the middle as the league trying to make sure we're setting this league up for success for decades. That's the goal, to have a fair CBA for all.

I want a lot of the same things the players want. I said that last time, too. It's not changed. But we also have to have a process where we go back and forth. We're in the process. Again, I'm still really optimistic that we'll get something done that will be transformational and next year at All-Star we'll be talking about how great everything is. Obviously, there's a lot of hard work to be done on both sides to get there.

Q. Do you expect a deal to be done by October 31st? Regarding the schedule, is it necessary for the WNBA to expand the schedule? What is the ideal number of games in your mind or a footprint?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, good questions.

So last time I think we got the CBA done mid-January. I think it was actually January 15 or something like that. So obviously I have confidence we can get something done by October, but I'm not going to put an exact date on it because if we're in a good place, we're going back and forth, there's a few remaining issues, we can extend dates here and there. We have to have an expansion draft, free agency period, college draft by the time March Madness gets over for the women's game.

Would we like to get it done? Yes. Does it have to be done exactly on that date? We've got some room to continue negotiations if we're close at that point.

Then your second question was?

Q. The schedule.

CATHY ENGELBERT: Oh, schedule.

Yeah, obviously this year we're playing the max. We didn't play the max under the last CBA of up to 44 games this year because we didn't have an international competition like the Olympics or the FIBA World Cup.

As we go forward, obviously we're looking at the growth of the league, we're looking at 18 teams, we are looking at a variety of things around could we play more games in our footprint. Again, every other year we do have this international competition. We'll have the Olympics in '28, the FIBA World Cup next year, which is placed around Labor Day week, let's call it.

We're trying to look at footprints, but unfortunately can't be consistent every year because there's international competitions which we want to support. Now not only for our USA Women's National Team, who will be going for their ninth consecutive gold medal in L.A., we're now at over 20 percent players born outside the United States who are playing for their international team.

We want to make sure we're trying to fit our footprint in so that we can support those international competitions but also have a season worthy of where we are today as a hyper-growth league. We're trying to strike that right balance from that perspective.

Again, the scheduling is always a Rubik's cube when you're dealing with arena, broadcast windows, international competition, things like that. I think you'll see us want a consistent footprint going forward.

When there's international competition years, it will be a little different.

Q. When you talk about a CBA that's best for the league, that's best for both sides, from the league's perspective, why up until this point has the league been unwilling to propose a revenue sharing system that allows the players' salaries to grow with the league? Why the fixed rate?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Well, that's not accurate. We've been talking about different ways to do revenue sharing. There is revenue sharing in our existing CBA that is expiring after this season. So, we already have a revenue sharing.

We were at a very different place in 2020 than we are in 2025. So, I think you'll see the revenue sharing be a much more lucrative one as we go forward because we're in a better place, quite frankly.

I think, again, that's why I'm so optimistic that we're going to do something transformational here because we want the same things as the players want. We want to significantly increase their salary and benefits while balancing with our owners, their ability to have a path to profitability as well as continued investment. You see tens of millions of dollars being invested in practice facilities and other player experience by teams. We want to strike the right balance between those two so that can continue.

It's helped our hyper-growth, our free agency, our players play in places where they're getting a great player experience. That's going to continue I think no matter what we do here. It's a balance between those two. There is a proposal on both sides around revenue sharing.

Q. In your time as Commissioner, you've negotiated multiple media deals, added a ton of newer partners. You'll be at 18 teams by 2030. The CBA is the next step in that. For you personally, when the CBA is done, what is next for your personal goals? Is it adding the team in Houston, more partners, investment?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, I would say we have entered this period the last two years what I call hyper-growth. We're not going to be in hyper-growth forever. No company ever is. It's how to continue to sustain this momentum and ultimately globalizing our game.

I've talked about what that means. It doesn't mean just playing games globally, because a lot of people think that's it. Actually, we have an enormous fan base. I met a fan today that flew here from Australia just for two days this weekend. She's obviously a super fan.

How do we get more people engaged with the WNBA globally because I think we're really strong domestically now, obviously we're going to be in Canada next year with the Tempo. What does it look like in Europe, Middle East, Asia, Africa? There's a huge amount of possibilities to turn these players into the global household name stars that they've now become here in the United States domestically. I'd say that's the next big thing.

We have a variety of other capabilities we're trying to build around data, around fan acquisition, around using that data for insights to bring in more corporate partners at higher evaluations to help our teams grow their corporate partnership base, season tickets, dynamic pricing. There's a lot of things we've transformed enormously, don't get me wrong, over six years, but there's still a lot of hard work to be done.

I just come back to the players and the elite level of play they're putting on the court. I respect what they do every day. So thrilled to represent them because I think they're helping lift all of women's sports and, quite frankly, girls and women in society. I think it's pretty cool when you walk around WNBA Live. Walking behind A'ja Wilson today, how these fans are just kind of so looking up to her as such a role model I think beyond just her basketball ability. Those are the kind of things. I would say the next big one is globalization, for sure.

Q. On the schedule question, you talked about the footprint. What is the thought about possibly expanding going deeper into the calendar year as you add more games? Or is it very much a priority to try to be as summer-focused as possible?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, I mean, traditionally we've been May to October. Kind of mid- May to mid-September, then Playoffs are about a month. We're going to have a seven-game final this year. That tacks on a little bit. The way media looks at the value of media rights, they value the Playoffs very much. So, I'm glad we did that seven-game final. Plus, it's just the iconic. You saw it at the NBA this year with the seven games between OKC and Indy.

Yeah, I think there's a variety of things to look at again next year because of the FIBA World Cup. We may leak into a little bit of early November. Still working through that footprint. Generally I would think May to October. There's not much to do on the front end because of the college season. The NCAA is such a big feeder of these amazing rookies, three of them now as All-Stars, into our league. I don't think there's much you can do on the front end. You can a little on the back end.

How much college football Saturdays do you want to go into? Although I would say our fan base crossover, it's why data is really important to look at what's our fan base crossover with those other sports. Then the NBA would be starting. We generally haven't overlapped with them on our front end, their back end. Those are all things we're looking at as far as what is the best footprint, what is the best number of games, the cadence of those games for our season. I would expect May to October with maybe a little leakage into November in the near term primarily next year because of the FIBA World Cup.

Q. You have three All-Stars here who are not able to play because of injury. Is the rate of injury something the league is concerned about?

CATHY ENGELBERT: First of all, I think those three coming in toward the back end here right before All-Star totally understand why that's on the mind. I think the rate of injury is similar to last year. Our game cadence is a little down in the first half of the season, 2.5 or something like that. It was a little higher last year. So, we can't look at that.

Looking at data, player health and safety, obviously number one. Training, what they're doing in the off-season, things like that. Certainly something that we look at all the time.

But I know there's been some very high-profile injuries. Our data would show there's no significant increase in injuries through the same number of games as last year.

Q. You talked a lot about different kinds of expansion. Have you had much discussion about expanding All-Star Friday Night with a rookie sophomore game to showcase the new players that are so popular?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, that's a great question because nobody was asking this five, four, three, two years ago. I love that you're asking that. Obviously last year we did have a third component with the 3X3 game in advance of the Olympics to give that team a chance to play against college players. Absolutely, we're looking for more. After the hour and 10 minutes last night, these fans want more.

So yes, we'll definitely be looking at different ideas, different formats beyond the skills and three-point. I got a lot of fans asking me that today at WNBA Live. We want more W this weekend. We're going to look at that and hopefully deliver something in the future on that.

Q. I wanted to circle back to this upcoming expansion draft. It's going to be collectively bargained. With so much of the league hitting unrestricted free agency, how is that going to complicate potential plans or rule tweaks?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, so obviously the expansion draft will come first, then free agency will follow that. Assuming we follow the same kind of collective bargaining process we've been following calendar-wise, that will push more into late January, early February. Hopefully we have the two-team expansion draft by then.

There's a lot of things that we're talking about related to that. Like you mentioned, unrestricted free agency. We have rookies under rookie contracts. Rookie scales will be adjusted with the new CBA. There's a lot of things we're thinking about from that perspective.

I would just say stay tuned in on that. We're still looking at what the expansion draft would look like with a two team. If it followed what we did with the Valks, you'll probably figure out what that looks like.

For those that don't follow the league closely, most of the leagues veterans will be free agents in this period. They were obviously very thoughtful about how they thought about it, knowing we would be in a new CBA by then.

So it's going to be actually really interesting I think, too. I think players are going to have a lot of choice. I tell every owner the player experience is going to be really important, especially for the top players who are going to want to pick where they go. I think there will be a lot of conversation. I think it will be really interesting to follow.

Expansion draft should occur before that, assuming we stick with the same timing. We'll know a little more after that expansion draft who truly then has the free agency status.

Thank you. Enjoy the game, everyone.

Check out the Women's National Basketball Association Statistics



Women's National Basketball Association Stories from July 19, 2025


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central