September 13, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Why Commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s comments on CNBC matter
Jackie Powell and Maggie Hendricks discuss the comments, responses and what they would have liked to see
It’s time for another episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball. Host Jackie Powell, who is The Next’s New York Liberty beat reporter, had longtime sports journalist Maggie Hendricks on the podcast to talk about WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert who made some controversial comments this week on CNBC.
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If you missed the interview, or response from the WNBPA, Sydney Wingfield compiled those here. The majority of the criticism is related to Englebert’s response when asked about players like Angel Reese being harassed on social media.
The episode started with a quick clip from the interview and then Hendricks talked about her initial reaction saying Engelbert was “teed up a great question.”
“They are terrible things being said to these players and it was a moment where the players who are dealing with this could have felt support from the highest person in the WNBA.,
Hendricks said. “She was given such a softball of a question, and she bunted and didn’t make it to first base.”
From there, they discussed reactions from players like Breanna Stewart and Hendricks’ own experience with harassment as an MMA reporter earlier in her career.
Engelbert did release a written apology later that day to clarify her comments, but was it too late? Powell and Hendricks discuss that too and what they would have liked to see instead.
“There are amazing Black reporters and Black social media content creators in the W that she could have said, like, okay, so I screwed up. How can I fix this?” Hendricks said. “Let me make sure that I’m talking to somebody who, sadly, will probably know about were this is going, what the racism and the awful things that can happen to people who put themselves out there in this league. Let me have this conversation with them, and then kind of go from there. Making it a tweet, like, I don’t know. What was it like almost 12 hours later? Yeah, it kind of showed to me that she didn’t get how upset her players are.”
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