I think looking forward, the league should do the Commissioner's Cup prior to the regular season as a mini-tournament. Playoffs only get slightly expanded with the semifinals going to a best-of-5. Something to think about for the 2025 season which hopefully has two expansion teams by then.
I agree. Fans like tournaments, esp. if there is one and done aspect. Give the top 4 teams a bye, 5v12, 6v11, 7v10, 8v9. Winners go onto a best of 8. 2 or 4 day schedule in one city, maybe over the 4th of July weekend. Best game for every team counts as a regular season game for the standings.
Thanks for posting the press conference link on here, toad455. Not totally sure I would’ve found it otherwise, given it being a Twitter link.
Nothing really jumped out at me. The notable expansion-related things were Canada (Toronto? She didn’t specify the city, afaik) getting an exhibition game next year which they were supposed to get in 2020 upon the new CBA. She’d also like to do sorta what other leagues are doing by having games (exhibition, I think?) in Europe & Asia… eventually. Who knows when that’ll be.
However, it doesn’t sound like expansion itself is moving along at the rate Engelbert may have anticipated, which doesn’t seem good. At one point earlier this year (or last year?), she may have promised she’d have news by the end of 2022 about concrete/final locations, but when asked about that timeline directly upon her saying she’d have news “in the next couple years”, she seemed to walk it back. Somewhat disappointing, but it probably shouldn’t be surprising. She’s “down” to 10 potential locations now from the “10-12” she said she was at before. Lmfao. (We love performative progress or its equivalence in this country, all right.) So I’m not expecting any new team to start until 2025 now at the earliest – if at all! Lmao.
Something that I was pleasantly surprised got asked was the League having to go up against NFL Opening Day, and the NFL in general – however, it felt to me like Cathy E. basically said, “Yep & ya better get used to it!” 🙃
Something that didn’t get mentioned at all by her or the media members was attendance, in any capacity. JMO, but someone needed to inquire about Indiana… 🤢
BTW - one of the reasons why the start date for the Finals is suboptimal and some of the other scheduling issues that have arisen is that the schedule was built around the World Championships, so the season had to end really early.
Only way to avoid playing on NFL Sundays is moving the season’s start date back to February. If Engelbert isn’t willing to do that – and despite Prioritization, there’s no indication she is, likely because the W would run into more of the NBA season where direct arena conflicts become more prevalent – there’s no way around it period, full-stop. You need to continue playing at least on a Saturday or Sunday, but also on Fridays where there are few other pro leagues to compete with.
Engelbert really just need to secure timeslots for Sunday WNBA games September & later such that they don’t fall within that first wave of NFL games on Sundays (1:00-4:30p ET) which is always the biggest one with probably the biggest ratings collectively. She has to get ESPN to stop using the W as direct counterprogramming. Judging by what she said in press conference, I think she understands that at some level, but getting those friendlier timeslots is easier said than done. CBS & their Sunday football schedule can’t do it, so she’d either need to successfully fight ESPN/ABC on it, or find another network (or streaming service… I suppose) to house those big-time post/late-season Sunday games.
First, Cathy Engelbert is an employee of the owners, and implements their decisions as best she can.
Second, Engelbert has as much control over ESPN's decisions as I do. Once that contract is signed, ESPN decides when the games will be played. (Now, the contract could have been amended, but again, that's not Engelbert, that's the owners.)
And to repeat myself, if the WNBA expands by two teams, each existing team will lose 16.7% of its media and sponsorship income. How many existing owners are going to vote for that? Now, if franchises had any value, then an expansion owner might be willing to pony up some real dollars (not future income to be paid at a later date) that would be enough to offset that 16.7% loss in income for several years, but that seems highly unlikely. (Let's say each team gets $1 million in TV and sponsorship money. They would lose $167,000 per year at the present rate, with no real promise of increased income. That's about $2 million per year for 12 teams. So for three years the expansion fee would have to be $3 million per new team; for five years, $10 million.)
If the TV deal goes up, as expected, then the cost of sharing that revenue goes up as well, meaning the expansion fee should be even higher.
Cathy Engelbert did not create this equation, and has no power to alter it. If the owners feel expansion will benefit them, they have the power to make it happen -- assuming of course there are some people out there with $10 million or so to lose.
Now that the Finals are over, welcome to the WNBA version of purgatory - off season when probably everything is in a state of chaos and nothing is going to happen for a while. What makes this off-season especially bad is there is so much up in the air regarding prioritization and therefore FA. Two of the top 4 teams (Sky and Storm) have virtually blank slates when it comes to their 2023 rosters, while several teams are potentially impacted by prioritization in a highly negative way. The Mercury are also in a state of limbo with the Griner and SDS situations completely uncertain. Not that they matter much to most fans but the Dream have only a bunch of young recent draft picks on their roster. The same is true for the Fever and it seems they might even leave town. Finally, we don't even know when the draft lottery is going to take place. Oh, and Sparks and Fever don't even have a head coach.......
WNBA Future Power Rankings: Predicting best, worst franchises
Interesting that they're doing this now, when the availability of star talent has never been more uncertain due to Prioritization.
Imo the Storm are gonna finish either 1-4 or 9-12, depending on whether or not we have the services of Breanna Stewart. Though I guess if Stewart sits out 2023 and thus is unavailable to everyone but Loyd returns as scheduled, maybe we finish somewhere in the Mediocre Middle like we did in 2019 depending on how free agency goes for us.
Interesting that they're doing this now, when the availability of star talent has never been more uncertain due to Prioritization.
Imo the Storm are gonna finish either 1-4 or 9-12, depending on whether or not we have the services of Breanna Stewart. Though I guess if Stewart sits out 2023 and thus is unavailable to everyone but Loyd returns as scheduled, maybe we finish somewhere in the Mediocre Middle like we did in 2019 depending on how free agency goes for us.
I'm really skeptical of this as well. Voepel must just be bored already or has nothing to do but write articles like this and other article with 2023 Power Rankings.....
I don't see the Dream as being the 5th best. True they have a lot of cap space, but Howard is the only proven WNBA level starter. While she may be a star she may never live up to expectations. Plus, Atlanta has never been a destination for top tier FA's and I don't see that changing any time soon. The biggest problem is that to be a contender a team needs at least 2-3 star players. If they win the Boston Lottery I'd say the #5 ranking makes more sense.
Picking the Liberty 4th also seems like a reach given their actual performance over the past couple of seasons.