Ep. 29 | Does the WNBA Need New Leadership?, All-Star Draft Preview, Kelsey Mitchell Is On Fire

The WNBA is having a leadership crisis, and All-Star Weekend is about to put it under a spotlight. This week we dig into whether Commissioner Cathy Engelbert is the right person to lead the league through its current moment.The reporting is not flattering: Sports Business Journal says Engelbert wasn't going to suspend Alyssa Thomas until NBA commissioner Adam Silver stepped in and pushed her to act. Meanwhile players are fielding online harassment and death threats, and the players association had to request the meeting with the commissioner rather than the league leading from the front. We lay out why a business-first commissioner may not be built for a player-safety moment. Then we flip to the fun stuff: the 30th-anniversary All-Star draft, a stacked three-point contest field, and some of the best individual runs we've seen all season.This week we get into:The WNBA commissioner question: the Alyssa Thomas suspension and Adam Silver's involvement, online harassment and player safety, and why Engelbert's consulting-era, revenue-first approach may not fit the league's new fan baseWNBA All-Star Weekend preview: Cynthia Cooper's Team Coop vs. Teresa Weatherspoon's Team Spoon, Becky Hammon and Cheryl Reeve on the benches, and our full three-point contest and skills contest breakdownKelsey Mitchell's historic tear: 25-plus points in six straight games (never done by a guard), plus Kayla McBride's climb up the Lynx record books and a Jordan Canada appreciation segmentThe Queen's Classic: Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit drawing 42,175 to Citi Field, the largest women's sports crowd in New York City history, and what Gotham's 2028 move to Queens could unlockNWSL parity watch: the top five separated by three points, Trinity Rodman's four-goals-in-four-games run, and the returns of Sam Kerr and Lindsey HeapsWe also cover the NBA/WNBA TikTok partnership, the 2027 NCAA tournament expanding to 76 teams and ditching conference protection, the European Broadcasting Union's new guidance to stop filming female athletes through an objectifying lens, Michele Kang's plan to own a women's soccer club on every continent, and the women's sports merchandising gap. Plenty to chew on before the All-Star break.Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage.Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_podWebsite: rtgpod.comSubstack: substack.com/@raisingthegamepodcastEmail: [email protected]