WNBA Standoff Pits Players Who Want More Pay Against Its Chief

As WNBA Commissioner, Cathy Engelbert has transformed women’s basketball into a business juggernaut — but a standoff over how much players should share in the league’s growth could threaten her leadership, and her legacy.

Engelbert, a 60-year-old former chief executive officer of the accounting giant Deloitte who took the once-struggling league’s top job in 2019, has been widely credited with steering the pro basketball league through the tumult of the Covid-19 pandemic and into a prosperous new era.

Thanks in part to a surge in interest stoked by young superstars including Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, the WNBA ...