Cathy Engelbert
Appearances
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, definitely tens of millions. So we were, you know, back when I joined, we were at the, you know, kind of on the outskirts of professional sports back in 2020. And then the pandemic, we held a season in a bubble down at IMG Academy, and then just raised some capital in early 2022, which gave confidence, I think, to our owners to start investing and Build on the momentum.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And then we got this amazing rookie class led by Caitlin Clark last year. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes. And the quality of the game, Bill, has really advanced enormously since I certainly played the game when there was no women's professional sports basketball league. So I do take it with great responsibility that we are the longest tenured women's professional sports league in the U.S. by double any other.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
But, you know, we've arrived for sure.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And then you had this rookie class, you know, during Asia Wilson and if he's a Collier and, Just, you know, you know, to add into the rookie and we have another great rookie class off of our draft this year with Paige Beckers and Kiki Iriafan. And I mean, personalities like huge personalities, too. So I think that has arrived.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
But literally, there's so much we're hitting this confluence in women's sports and the WNBA world. we were kind of ahead of the curve in raising that capital back in 22. Now there's so much capital coming in and partners and corporate partners. And, you know, it's led to kind of major investments on the player development side.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So when you have built that confidence in a business model, that's going to work and it's sustainable, which is what I've been brought in to do. It's you, you see the benefits of that, the returns of that. And then you see, you know, An athlete, a generational athlete like Caitlin, I analogize it to the Tiger Woods effect in golf.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And just her followership and then the rivalry she came in with against Angel Reese in LSU, Iowa. And now Paige Becker's coming in from UConn off her championship. But we had great players for a couple decades. But now I think with social media, with NIL, with them having brands when they come in and followership, And just the quality of the game. I can't say enough about that, too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, no, it's a, it's a very good point. And the other thing is the brands are seeing the value of these athletes staying in college, because again, under our current CPA, you have to be 22 by the end of the calendar year in which you get drafted. If you're in the U S university system.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
She couldn't come out. She's only a sophomore. Right. So we wish her well, she's going to be an amazing player in the WNBA someday, but obviously I had that injury during the NCAA tournament, but. Yeah. So I do think that brands get to know them. Fans get to know them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
They come out and they thrive in the W. I mean, as hard as and as competitive as the W is, they not only have a local and kind of regional brand like they have in college, but then they have a national and actually now a global brand. So I think it's kind of cool to watch that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah. So Dominique Malunga is her name. She was drafted number two to the Seattle Storm. And our GMs are really smart. They're looking at the global talent pool. I think four of our top 12 picks this year were players born outside the United States. So including one that was in the university system from Australia. But it's incredible what Dominique is doing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I mean, again, I met her at the draft, but we brought her over from France. But, you know, what she's doing effortlessly around her athleticism, dunking. So we'll see. She'll help lift Seattle. And we're going to have a lot of parity in the league this year, Bill. I mean, it's not just going to be two teams like it's been in the past or three.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I think six, seven teams are really going to compete hard for the championship this year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Next year, Portland and Toronto.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
15. Yeah. So we're looking at I've kind of talked about getting to 16 by no later than the end of 28.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
It's excellent timing to be talking about it because we do have so much interest from some great cities. And I knew when I joined the league, when technology is driving so much of your economy and you don't have a team in the Bay Area, San Francisco, that we needed to fix first. And then Toronto and Portland and Toronto is such a great sports market.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And after that Raptors win, when I was actually being courted to come into the WNBA, the Raptors won the NBA championship that year. And so I knew Toronto would be a great place, Portland, great place for women's sports. So I think you're right, Billy. You don't want to degradate the quality of the game by bringing in too many teams too fast.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
That's why people thought like my first thing I should have done is when I came in was expansion. And I said, no, we've got a lot of transformation of the business model, the economic model. We got to Build confidence in this league, bring investment into this league and capital, get our owners all on the same page. And so that's what we've done.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And now it's time to expand, which you're going to see the Valkyries this year out in San Francisco. That's going to be a home run.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
They have more season ticket holders than any team in the history of the WNBA. And what's really interesting, Bill, and this tells you about the W, less than 5% of those season ticket holders are Golden State Warriors season ticket holders, but they're owned by the same ownership group. They're going to play in Chase Center.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
That's an amazing stat because we know that we have such a great fan base and it just brings in a whole new fan base, a whole new media market for us. Same with Toronto having kind of the country of Canada. So, you know, more to come, but you're right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We're, we're currently evaluating and really putting together an analysis of what the right numbers of team teams are and when, but we do have a huge amount of demand, low supply, high demand from some great cities that you would say would be a no brainer for WNBA.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, they varied. So Golden State was different than Toronto, which was different from Portland, which will be very different from Team 16.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Portland was a little higher than that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, it's incredible what has happened. But if you just look at the revenue teams are building, there's going to be some valuations coming out from both Sportico and Forbes in the next few months, I think that are going to show an enormous increase in the valuation.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
of our teams because revenue is up whether it's from gate whether some corporate partnerships whether it's from merch um you know there's a lot of things that lead into a multiple on revenue and a confidence in the risk underlying that being in the league yeah that always helps um i feel like so you have 40 game season 44 this year so most of it up 44. That's the max under the CBA.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We can play 44. So last year it was hard to play that because it was an Olympic year and we had to break for the Olympics in the middle of our season. But this year, no international competition. We can comfortably play 44 with our footprint.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
You're looking at playoffs this year. We have a little evolution as well. The first round. So we're a three, five, seven now. First ever. You went seven. I missed that. Wow. That's exciting. Seven games. And Bill, you came to that Minnesota, New York game. Can you imagine that went. full five games to overtime. Can you imagine if that had been a seven game?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And that was one of my goals is to get our finals to seven game series because sports leagues play seven game series like you're seeing in the NBA right now. So in game sevens are one of the most exciting things I think in sports. So we'll have seven games and even our first round now will be 1-1-1 instead of 2-1. So everybody will get a home game that makes the playoffs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So yeah, we're evolving that with the footprint we have.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, one of the things I looked at when I came in, I said, like, we need a strategy. I do everything in threes, Bill. So I said, we got to be player first, stakeholder success, including owners and players, et cetera, and fan engagement. We had to make it easier to be a fan.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So we set off on this path, but that sat on the foundation called The Game, which I thought had never been better, both at college and into the WNBA. The brand, which was really strong. The organization, team and league, which were a total mess and we needed to transform and hire human capital. Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And then the ecosystem, think media companies, corporate partners, where less than 1% of all corporate partnership dollars in sports back in 2019 were going to women's sports and less than 5% of all media coverage going to sports was going to women's sports. So what changed is this confluence that I was talking about of capital coming into the league, confidence building, valuations going up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
higher demand, new facilities, better amenities. We did kind of what we called a historic CBA back in 2020. Now we're in another one and we'll do something transformational this year. But it's a confluence of all that and this popularity of the game. I mean, basketball is the number one team sport in the United States. And it's number two globally. So next to soccer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So it's really an amazing time to be in women's sports and then in women's basketball. So, but let's not, this has been really hard, hardest. I mean, I spent 33 years before I came here in business. This has been the hardest five years because we had to, every rock we picked up, we had to transform something under it and Last year, my mantra was the bold will win. Everything must change.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And that was even before I knew Caitlin was even coming into the league. And then this year, it's sustaining gains. So I always have a mantra every year. But we stick with this strategy. Player first, stakeholder success, fan engagement. We've hired engineers, social media. We had none of that. I had 12 people in the league when I joined. And now we had no growth engine.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And now we have 25 people driving growth at the league level. We had one marketing person when I joined. Now we have close to 30 marketing people. I hired a CMO who was a long-time Nike professional. So, I mean, it's just been a great lesson in you need financial capital to hire human capital, but you need the people to grow the business. So, We were ready.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I didn't know this was coming as quickly as it did. I thought we need three or four more years. And what happened last year was sellout arenas and record-breaking viewership. And look at our preseason this year, Bill. We just had like sold out college arenas. That was the other thing I wanted to, how do you get the NCAA viewer into the W viewership?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And one of the ways to go back to those college arenas like we did with going to Iowa and Notre Dame, LSU, and then Sabrina and the Liberty will be playing in Oregon. So leading into the tip of the season. So, yeah, it's just every idea. We can be bold. We're a smaller league, smaller brand, but we can be bold and really bring what our fans want. We've been listening a lot.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
They weren't given away, but they were cheap in the upper bowl.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And I think also it was like the confidence, like when I came into the league, the owners of which the size were just joining the league. Mark wasn't in the league at MGM on the aces. The owners were all in on something called a go big. So literally it was go big or go home. When I was interviewing for the role, go big or go home. So all the owners saw something in the future.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
It was just let's chart a path. Let's hire a commissioner. Let's hire a great human capital to execute it. So I think that's when the size joined and Mark joined a few years later. And then they had, you know, Mark had a, you know, before he got there and a couple of great drafts with an Asia Wilson and a Jackie young and, You know, a few others, you know, Chelsea Gray came from L.A.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
and for the agency. And so I think that helps. And it helps when you have those star players. New York attracted Brianna Stewart and they had drafted Sabrina Unesco who had gotten hurt her rookie season in our bubble. So and, you know, to your point about the NCAA also in the final four that Friday night. I mean, those are the big games of consequence.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Like how great is March Madness on both the men's and women's side? Those are huge games of consequence. And we have that shorter season. So I would argue a lot of our games are games of consequence, even in the regular season.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
But then when we get into the playoffs, you're going to see a lot of competitive competition, a lot of parity this year leading into our playoffs in September and October when we crown the champion.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, just in a league, not teams. This was the thing I referred to in February of 22. Yeah. Because we had no capital to go hire people to affect a digital transformation, to hire social media people.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So, well, first of all, half of our existing teams invested in it. So it was 16% altogether, but about 6% of that were existing investment investors like the size and the Seattle group and, um, Indiana, um, you know, Washington, Ted Leonsis. Um, so yeah. So it was about 10% outside investors like Nike and Michael Dell and Condoleezza Rice and Swin Cash and Pau Gasol and Baron Davis.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So we opened it up to a broader group of diverse investors, Melody Hobbs and Gayle King. Like we're really proud of what we did back then. And it served us well. I mean, we would not be where we are today, not even close without that capital and having deployed it. Again, so many different things, including, you know, marketing, including we launched our first ever in-season competition.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We have our Commissioner's Cup well before the NBA did it as a nice little, you know, trial run for the NBA's Emirates Cup now. And again, we're just able to produce all of our preseason games. We weren't able to do that before. We just had this record-breaking game between the Indiana Fever and the Brazilian national team, a preseason game that averaged 1.3 million viewers on ESPN.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And then our draft was the second most viewed ever, the most viewed compared to MLB and NHL in their history. So we're seeing the returns of that investment in a big way and the values of our teams going up. So that capital raise, when you saw the people that came and invested, I think gave confidence to all of our owners to invest in their teams, which is driving their team values up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So I think it's you know, a bit of a confidence builder and, you know, capital and valuation is all about confidence in the business and what you're building here. And, you know, to your question about the, or point about the media deal, we're not even done yet. So that was our tranche one media deal, which actually was much more than triple five to six times.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah. So it's a, that was a 200 million AAV. And we were going in with about 40. But by the time we're done with tranche two, because we still have plenty of inventory left to sell, hopefully we're aiming to be about 260 AV over many years. And that's the other thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
When you get a big piece of your revenue locked in at a huge number, I mean, this is actually pretty historic or is historic, our largest media deal in the history of women's sports. And as we know, and you know better than anybody, Bill, The landscape's changing so quickly. Streamers are interested in us. They're interested in more year-round content.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Partnering with the NBA, we can provide... We're the only two leagues that run counter that can provide over 320 days of live programming to a streamer. And so it was much more attractive to a Disney and Amazon and NBCU with Peacock for the W to be part of this historic deal. So... We're excited about that. Starts next year, next season. This year, we're still under our old deals.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
It's a little bit of an unknown thing. We already had our own deals. We already had Amazon. We've had Amazon. This will be our fourth year with Amazon. We have Scripps, Zion, we have CBS. Those are three deals the NBA doesn't have. So everyone just assumes it's just the NBA deal. It's not.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
But again, the beauty of going to market, at least for that first tranche of deals with the NBA is that 320 plus days of live program. We're the only two leagues that can do that here in the US. And it paid huge dividends because otherwise we're a four and a half month season bill. And it's not as interesting to a streamer who's on a subscription plan with their subscribers every month, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
But you need to provide year round content. That's why that was advantage. I mean, obviously, the NBA has been a huge supporter for a long time. David, who launched the league, now Adam, obviously. And I sit on the NBA senior leadership team, which is helpful, you know, because we can, you know, play off one another.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And they've seen a huge now demand for the WNBA game and are always really helpful. We share some back office shared services. But again, we kind of because of that capital raise, been able to hire a lot of people on our own and have our own sellers on that side of things. But yeah, I mean, it's a huge advantage.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
There's a reason why we're the longest tenured women's professional sports league ready to enter season 29. And it's because, you know, we've had a big brother all along.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And we want them to make as much money as they can make, but keeping in mind the economic model we've been building. And I would say, you know, Five, six years ago, we were like an infant. You talked about it being viewed as a startup. We were like an infant in our economic model, not in the game, our economic model. And now we like graduated to like a young adult.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We kind of skipped our teen years and our tween years. And we graduated to a young adult. But we still have a lot of growth ahead of us. And it's not just the media deal driving growth and that's going to drive growth. significant increases in player pay. And you know, last year, we already did the charter program fully for all teams for the whole season of playoffs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We have been chipping away each year. We did it initially for the finals and we did it for all playoffs, Commissioner's Cup. And I felt because I knew kind of where we were trending on the media deal that we would pay it forward and give the players charter last year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Everyone, we did it in between collective bargaining. So we did it because I felt very confident in the fact that if we could get to 2026 and the new meteorites deals, and I knew where we were trending, that we would essentially pay it forward and do it sooner than an expected bargaining cycle. So that's done. Our corporate partners have stepped up in a huge way. We just signed Ally Financial.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
They're going to do a Rivals Week. They're going to innovate inside the partnership. We have Google and Nike and Deloitte and AT&T and CarMax and so many others and American Express. So, I mean, we're in such good shape, but we still have a lot of low hanging fruit growth global. I mean, Bill, if you ask me what's next, Kathy, after expansion and all this and CBA, it's global.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I mean, there's, I mean, when I was at the state department a couple of years ago, they said like one of the number one requests they get from embassies is for women basketball players and the WNBA to come to those embassies and show young girls that they could be professional athletes and leaders in their communities. So there's so much.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Is that like in play down the road? Obviously kind of tested Canada as our first outside the U S we'd love to play preseason games around the world. That's part of our plan. And whether that's in Europe, Asia, Africa, longer term cities on the list, there's a lot of cities that would like us to come and have an exhibition or a regular season game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
This year, we're playing our first ever regular season game outside the U.S. in Vancouver. I know that might not sound like a big deal, but this is a regular season game that the Atlanta Dream will actually host the Seattle Storm up in Vancouver. And we've seen huge success selling out in Edmonton and Toronto on preseason games. So the sky's the limit globally.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We just want to make sure we have the right global footprint first. Nike just took Sabrina Ionescu over to Asia. She went to China and Hong Kong and I think the Philippines. And so, you know, that kind of you remember, Bill, what happened with the NBA when they brought Kobe there and Stefan Marbury and built huge businesses and huge followership in Asia.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And so I think we'll, you know, look at that playbook a little bit and make sure we're bringing our game to markets. I mean, we showed our games in India a couple of years ago and 24 million unique viewers watched our games in India and we didn't have one. player from India in the WNBA. So lots of upside globally for us.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
The timeline is by the end of the year. So I feel really good. We've already been having meetings. I feel really good that we'll get something transformational done together. And you know, the players will posture in the media. But as I said on draft night, we're not going to negotiate in the media.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We're going to negotiate across the table and we're going to return as much as we possibly can with keeping in mind the financial viability of the league for many decades to come. And I think the players will want that too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I heard that you said that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
You know, I threw out that stat about the Golden State Valkyries only having less than 5% of the fans that were season ticket holders that were Golden State Warrior fans. The actual, you know, look, the footprint is challenging. It's a Rubik's Cube, arena availability, broadcast windows. We got to do May to October. And I realized that goes into both the college football season.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So we don't generally don't play on Saturdays and it goes into the NFL season for sure. Although we ironically kept a weird pickup in viewership on Sundays when we.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
If the one o'clock game, a lot of times we play at three o'clock Eastern, the one o'clock games close to over by then or the score or whatever, people will turn on ABC or ESPN. We do really well on ABC because we have a more lifestyle viewer. And I think our crossover, we get a lot of fandom. That was the one thing, Bill, when I came in, we had no, I go, who's our fan?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Everybody looked at me like, what? So now, again, we have data analysts and data scientists and, you know, fan acquisition and insight, like insight people who will take our fan data and give me insights off of that. And one of the insights was, I think it, we only have 20% crossover with NFL fans. So only 20% of NFL fans are also WNBA fans. Now we would like more of them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So we'll, we'll have our Taylor Swift someday, right? Because we skew a little more women than the men's leads do. And, And so, you know, I think we're working on ways to bring in more fans, whether it's from other men's professional sports or women's or whatever. But that was an aha when I saw we're only 20 percent. Yeah, it's like 60 some percent NBA fans are also WNBA fans.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So, you know, so it's a much bigger percentage. So not to compete against the NBA or college basketball is more important to me. I don't even view it as competing as the NFL because we have a whole different fan base. But we get a little lift on those Sundays when we play games. I know a lot of people don't think so, but we do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
No, it is a balance, but she's a generational talent. No league's ever about one player. But in this case, Caitlin brought tens of millions of new viewers into the W and there's no denying that impact. Not just in the WNBA, but the world of sports. Adam and I talk all the time about it. she's the most popular athlete in America.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
You know, she went to an LPGA tournament for a pro-am on a Wednesday and like throngs of people were out there to watch her. You know, I was at the Masters last year when she was in the final four. And, you know, I counted like 19 Caitlin Clark shirts of people walking around the Masters. It's crazy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Just turned 23. So she is hugely popular. But again, you do want to balance it because obviously it's all what happened with Juju Watkins. You know, you want to balance making sure that you're also promoting your other stars like Anasia Wilson. Yeah. Like Brianna Stewart, Nafisa Collier killed it last year. I mean, she was the runner up MVP and the defensive player of the year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah. And she's a great person.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
She's a mom and a role model for so many. So, um, yeah. So I, I think again, um, that's why this year sustaining gain, sustain the momentum we had last year and gain even new, new viewers. Because if you look at, I mean, we're up triple digits in every category and every demographic and, Young people, old people, young girls and boys were having watch parties and watching our game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So it was incredible. How's the gambling?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
There already is a lot of legalized sports betting on the WPA. And, you know, one of the things last year on our tip-off night, happened to be a Tuesday night last year, not a Friday night because of the Olympic break and we had to push everything in. But we competed on ESPN2 against the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and outrated it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And FanDuel said the handle on the W was the highest in the month of May last year of any sport. So it was incredible. So yeah, that's another, like, if you think about innovation, about watch and bet and bet and watch. And why do people watch sports? They watch for rivalries. They watch for compelling content. And yeah, some of the sports bettors watch because they bet the game. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
But I know like I became an NFL fan because I have five brothers and I started playing fantasy football. Right. And so I knew I had Tim Brown. I'll never forget it. And, you know, I had this was way back. And so that that caused me then to watch games. So same thing here. I think more people are coming to watch the game from that from that fan segment, we call it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
The problem is every other year we have an international competition. So next year will be the FIBA World Cup. Then two years after that, we have L.A. 28, which we love. I mean, the Olympics are I mean, the fact that the women won eight consecutive gold medals, the U.S. women's national basketball team, and they're going for their ninth all time record in L.A., It is amazing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
So we have to support those international competitions. Yeah, I can definitely see us going to 50. I don't know what, it's collectively bargained. So right now the max is 44. And, you know, the question is, do we want to go into November and cross over with the NBA and college basketball?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And then, because there's not much, people don't understand, there's not much you can do on the front end because we love the college draft. We love the rookies, a lot of rookies.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
yeah, we can't start it much earlier. I mean, again, in a year like last year, like Caitlin gets, goes to the final game. It's drafted the following Monday night as in training camp, the following Sunday.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Like that was, that was pretty hard. Since she was four years old or whatever. So yeah, So again, this year we had a little more time. We had like two and a half weeks between the draft and opening of training camp. But yeah, it's a challenge on the front end. You can't move it too much forward if you want the rookies to come in, which we do because it's a great feeder system for us, as you said.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And then so we'll look at the back end and how far can we go and how many NFL and college football Saturdays can we go into. And we'll evaluate all that under the CBA.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
ESPN does have a product. They have a fantasy league women's, uh, for the WNBA women's basketball. It's called. Yeah. So, um, they do have one just, I think the last two years or so.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, Bill. Five years for you?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
It'll be six years in July. So the first year was all blur because it was COVID.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
We forget COVID was like, you know, not that long ago, but seems like forever ago. So yeah, I feel like so the first year really during COVID, that's when I handed Asia Wilson her first MVP and now three-time MVP with her own shoe. Oh, the other thing, Bill, that's been amazing to watch from where I sit is
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
When I joined the league, not one player had a significant endorsement with a big brand, except for maybe their sneaker brand, but they weren't big. And now there's almost a commercial break in any major sport where you're not seeing the WNBA player in the commercial spot. It's pretty cool to watch, whether it's CarMax, whether it's AT&T. Delta now on the seat back on a Delta plane.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
They filmed a commercial with three of our players, Stewie and Nneka Agumake. And it's just incredible what brands have done to step up to support these players, too, individually. Like we have league deals with them. But we also have they also have personal endorsements now. And so that's been a great part about the growth of the league.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And I always said if 80 percent of every household consumer purchasing decision in the U.S. is made or influenced by a woman, why wouldn't you endorse a WNBA player?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Yeah, she's the GOAT. She got voted the GOAT in our 25th year. But also cool.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
I know. And now I think, God, if I was the commissioner 20 years ago, would it have been different? Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Um, so I just look at, look at, look at Phoenix, look at Seattle, look at obviously Indy has really, I think I might bet I might bandwagon it and just bet on the fever to win the, win the title.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
Um, but yeah, he, our free agency this year, Bill, it's another thing that changed in the CBA. Our free agency was a lot better this year than I thought, but next year, fasten your seatbelt. 80% of the veterans in this week will be free agents. Wow. And we'll run two expansion drafts. So one expansion draft, but for two teams. Oh, that's right. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be crazy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
And that'll be our 30th season, Bill. So really looking forward to that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
All right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
All right. Thanks, Bill. Anytime, any game.