Wanted: A new WNBA commissioner. She must be everything to everyone

For about 44 awkward seconds inside a nightclub, Cathy Engelbert was indeed the beloved commissioner of the WNBA.

The setting: the 2025 All-Star weekend in downtown Indianapolis. The vibe: mixed drinks and bad decisions. The moment: Engelbert and a pair of pink-haired players, Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman, streaming their 'StudBudz' shenanigans nonstop.

With the camera rolling and the DJ playing the party anthem "Knuck If You Buck," Engelbert greets the players, tells them they're "amazing," and raises both hands in a way that someone who's never given a fist bump in their life would attempt a fist bump.

Alas, the next woman who becomes WNBA commissioner — and it will be a woman — she'll have to continue this delicate dance.

Now that Engelbert has announced her decision to retire at the end of this season, she leaves with a long list of business wins and strained relationships. So the next commissioner chosen to lead this league, she'd better be a special boss . One who can show business competence and still communicate like a regular person. One who can anticipate the outside disruptions while empathizing with the targeted workforce inside the storm. Above all else, she'd better understand that the WNBA hasn't reached the finish line of being financially solvent, while still seeing the players as more than just parts of the money machine.

Since she'll be a woman required to do all this heavy lifting, she'd better accept the unfairness of it all.

Because the world is the way it is, the standard for female CEOs will always be higher and more personal than that of their male counterparts. She has to be approachable in the hallways, yet have some callousness in the boardroom. Her personality has to demand respect, but she still has to be, you know, a boss with rizz. She should be prepared to be condemned as a tyrant for making the same hard decisions a man might make, as researchers found in 2016 in coverage about then-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer compared with Jack Dorsey, the guy who allowed Twitter to go to hell.

Now, let's get this straight: Bad bosses are bad bosses, regardless of gender. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres lost her popular talk show for creating a toxic work environment. Former Vice President Kamala Harris ran through staffers as though she was hosting a version of "Squid Game" inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson racked up tons of civil lawsuits from her previous day job as a licensed interior designer. So to ignore the missteps made by Engelbert, or shield any woman in a leadership position from justifiable criticism, would be the opposite of equality among the sexes. It would be condescending and a distorted version of "women helping women."

Even with that acknowledgment, however, there's still the truth about the way women leaders must walk a fine line between exercising their power without being labeled as bitchy. Mary Ann Sieghart, who authored "The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About it," said during a panel last year that "women are 10 times more likely to be described as abrasive than men, while men are three to four times more likely to be described as confident than women."

Engelbert's problem wasn't that she was so abrasive. She just lacked emotional equity with the players. She tossed up word salads as messaging, and apparently, didn't seem to care. Also, it must be noted: The majority of Engelbert's critics were women.

At the end of last season, Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier scorched the league by saying that the WNBA had the "worst leadership in the world." Collier also alleged that Engelbert had told her Caitlin Clark and other young stars "should be on their knees," thankful for the platform provided by the WNBA. A good boss would've viewed it the other way around, that the league should've been on its knees groveling in gratitude for the crossover stars and their impact on the overall bottom line.

The woman who'll replace Engelbert should learn from her mistakes.

Then again, who really wants to be WNBA commissioner ? It feels like an impossible job. For instance: Is the position more fit for a figurehead or an independent CEO? The crowning achievement of Engelbert's seven-plus years has to be the media rights deal the league secured under her stewardship. The deal is now worth more than $3 billion, and yet it's been reported that her boss, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, negotiated that payday — not her.

The job appears even less desirable since the WNBA attracts the crazies and the chaos more than any other professional sports league. Maybe there's a tracker inside the league office that reads: "Zero Days Since The Last Political Firestorm." If so, then just wait, because certainly some Republican lawmaker is ready to pen the next letter to the commissioner complaining about the "racially motivated" attacks against Clark.

It's now just a typical Friday night in the W when former NBA player Royce White shows up to an Indiana Fever game — wearing a long blonde wig — as part of his trolling to get drafted into the league as a "Black Trans Lesbian." As silly as White and Enes Kanter Freedom look during their cosplay as protectors of women's sports , the league still had to acknowledge their foolishness and respond that neither man is eligible for the WNBA draft. At least, the W can ban those bozos, but there's no eradicating the anonymous hate mongers across social media who direct racial and homophobic abuse at players.

Whew. Bless the brave woman who wants to inherit this burden.

For one unforgettable night in Indy, however, Engelbert had to have loved being commissioner.

As she grooved, the players swooned and cheered her on. "Look at Cathy!" Williams screamed, and Engelbert danced harder. She started to twirl. The crowd stopped and stared. More phones popped out to document this monumental scene when the chorus dropped and Engelbert instantaneously turned into an auntie.

In those moments, Engelbert wasn't the players' biggest enemy in a labor fight, nor the public's easiest target for heckles and derision. Instead, in that short clip, she was relaxed, fun, just one of the girls. For maybe the only time in her tumultuous years as the league's commissioner, Cathy Engelbert was relatable.

Quite the sobering commentary on society, but the next WNBA commissioner must understand the high-wire act of being in charge while combating the perception of not being warm enough. It's unfair, but it's the dance women leaders have danced since the beginning of time.

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