Is your organization the weak link of your league?

Worse, is it the laughingstock? 

Women’s sports are soaring in popularity, and that is an exciting though overdue social trend. But some teams and leagues, in the WNBA and NWSL specifically, have recently experienced public backlash over preventable missteps including questionable firings, botched rollouts, and misalignment with league culture and values. (A great deal of my reporting has focused on dubious hiring decisions in the WNBA.)

Teams, and the leagues that govern them, owe it to the women who play for them to align their organizational values to theirs. And the ticket-buying, merch-wearing fans of women’s sports now expect organizations to move away from the sports-world status quo that thwarted the growth of women’s sports in the first place.

Image-tarnishing events are avoidable.

​The old ways will not work anymore, and history — in the form of failed women’s sports leagues of the past — shows how quickly momentous enthusiasm can fade into disinterest and nonexistence. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated that the reasons the league needed to play the 2020 season despite the covid-19 pandemic were “existential.” In just five years, the WNBA climbed from the precipice of collapse to sold-out arenas and record-shattering television viewership. The league’s own history shows that vast gains can unravel just as quickly, if not faster.