The WNBA, in its 30th season, continues to set records in terms of viewership, attendance, engagement on digital platforms and more as the league’s growth trends even further upward by the year.
However, despite its popularity, the league faces controversy, including the murkiness surrounding sex reassignment eligibility and national anthem protests.
The good and the bad of the WNBA is what a new league commissioner will be dealing with next season, as NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the WNBA Board of Governors will choose a new one with Cathy Engelbert retiring at the end of the 2026 calendar year.
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He won’t be in the running for the job, but Carmelo Anthony has enjoyed the rise of the “W,” and knows what his first order of business would be if he took over as commissioner of the league.
“I’m going to invest in the players,” he replied when asked the exact question in a recent interview with OutKick. “You have to invest in the script. If you have no script, there’s no movie, there’s no film. You have to invest in the script, and the script in this case is the players.
“We have to protect the players. We have to protect them all across the board if we really want people to look at this league as the best women’s league in the world. So, you have to be intentional with the players and the script. You have to tighten that and build that, and make them feel comfortable in the situation that they’re in.”
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Anthony didn’t elaborate on what exactly the players need to be protected from, but he did lead his way into wanting to hear exactly how players feel about anything.
“This is a partnership. It’s not like, ‘You work for me.’ No, we work together to build this. I want to hear everybody. I want to hear the good, the bad, the ugly,” Anthony explained. “I want to hear where you guys want to go. I want to hear from the players because if I just come with my business acumen, I have a whole other vision for it.
“It has to be a collaborative situation. And that’s why you see the NBA has grown like that once it became a collaborative season.”
The good is over than 91 million unique viewers watching national broadcasts this season, which is more than double the prior season’s reach. There were also a total 3.8 million fans who attended games during the season, with a combined 212 sellouts and averaging attendance rising to 11,474 fans per game – a 21% hike from the previous WNBA high.
The bad and ugly, though, has been a long list in years past, but especially in this season.
Transgender athlete eligibility came a widespread debate after Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham publically opposed biological men competing in women’s sports. It spilled over into Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, both ex-NBA players, declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft citing the league’s rules.
While the league’s collective bargaining agreement saying, “only players who are women are eligible to play,” Engelbert and the rest of the league have not provided a detailed definition of a woman, which is why those like Freedom and White continue to speak out.
That has spilled into on-court altercations, with Freedom being kicked out of a Chicago Sky-Fever game after Natasha Cloud confronted him at his baseline seat. Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton was suspended and fined by the league after a courtside confrontation where she threw expletives at two teenage fans supporting Cunningham during a game.
In these WNBA Finals, the Golden State Valkyries and Atlanta Dream have repeatedly walked off the court before the national anthem, drawing massive criticism considering the league’s traditional expectation is for teams to stand in a dignified line like many other teams across professional sports and listen to the Star-Spangled Banner.
From broader cultural debates, including race, equity and how the league enforces, there are certainly things the new WNBA commissioner will need to address next season and beyond.
But ultimately, Anthony is loving what he’s seen in terms of the league’s growth, which is what he thinks matters most.
“I love the popularity, I love the attention that it’s getting. I love the seriousness that and intentionality that’s being put into the W right now,” he said. “The growth of it, obviously we’re seeing first-hand the growth of the W. But also, the talent and the skill level. The players and the women coming into the league, it’s amazing to watch, the way the game is evolving. I love watching the W because of the fundamentals of the game of basketball. They’re still going to take the best shot, they’re still going to run their plays. You gotta use a lot of skill as opposed to athleticism in the W, which is a beautiful thing.
“Then, when you add the athleticism, women in the W are athletic within that world. So, you see the different levels of athleticism when it comes to the W.”
STAYING MELO WITH DRAFTKINGS
While Anthony is looking forward to what the Knicks do this season, he’s excited for his partnership with DraftKings and being a part of its campaign ahead of the season.
“We got a great campaign, man. Myself, Kevin Hart, Nick Jonas. We really came together, and I got to give a shoutout to DraftKings and that creative team for putting that concept together,” he said. “The beauty in that is the fact that we can have more fun with DraftKings because it’s in all 50 states now, which is major. I just love the fact that more people are involved, and more people can have fun with the game of basketball in this sense, and just sports in general. I love that.”
Anthony called it a “beautiful thing” being able to work alongside Hart and Jonas for the campaign, which he is excited for fans to see.
With DraftKings available in all 50 states, the campaign revolves around Hart and Jonas traveling throughout the country, where car troubles can happen. As the tow truck figures out their situation, Anthony is waiting with his own car problems in the clip as he tries to get the word out about DraftKings.