The WNBA has graduated from startup mode — now comes the hard part

The WNBA has felt like the unicorn startup of the sports and entertainment world over the past few years, but its meteoric rise is starting to show cracks and, in some ways, stagnation. This is the stage every successful startup eventually hits: the moment when immense traction turns into growing pains.

For nearly three decades, the league fought for visibility and legitimacy. The past few years, though, have been transformative, with record interest, sponsors and more. That was its zero to one phase: survival, proof of concept, a relentless push to convince the world that professional women’s basketball belonged in the sports mainstream. It was scrappy, mission-driven and propelled by players who built a culture from almost nothing. And it made it. It survived and showed that it earned its spot in prime time.

Now the WNBA has product-market fit. The audience is expanding, sponsorships are growing and the conversation has shifted from whether the league matters to how big it can become. This is the classic startup inflection point, when the energy that built momentum must evolve into management — and the WNBA is learning how difficult that shift can be.

Leadership and the post-startup challenge

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert represents the professionalization phase of the WNBA. She was hired to bring structure, partnerships and stability to a league that had long been running on passion. 

In business, this is the moment a startup hires its first real CEO to replace the founders’ hustle with process and predictability. And Engelbert has helped build that momentum, but what if that same leadership that got you from zero to one can’t get you from one to 10? That’s something the league is divided on, especially with recent dismissive comments that have been attributed to Engelbert. If coaches and players don’t feel respected by the person leading the league, that becomes a reflection of where they believe the future is headed. 

The league is divided on what that future will look like and, in so doing, we not only see calls for new leadership, but also only one team bidding to host the All-Star Game in 2026. Why bid to host for something that you don’t necessarily feel a part of? Why participate if you don’t feel respected or appreciated by the league’s leadership? 

Players such as A’ja Wilson have voiced frustration over how the league is being managed and marketed. The tone of that frustration is familiar to anyone who has built a company: The team that helped create early growth begins to question whether leadership still shares its vision. When the product evolves faster than the executive strategy, tension follows. In a lot of these cases, you have the “rockstar” employee that is doing their job well and wants to be treated as such, only to be told they [Caitlin Clark] should feel lucky to be paid millions in sponsorships based on the exposure they receive by playing in the WNBA in the first place. 

You don’t need an HR professional to explain how employees will react to that. 

The WNBA is no longer asking, “How do we stay alive?” It’s asking, “Who are we becoming?” That is the most fragile point in any growth cycle. It seems clear that coaches and players are both concerned with what the WNBA is becoming. 

The risk of stagnation

Startups rarely fail because they run out of potential. They fail because their systems and culture do not evolve fast enough to support what success requires. The WNBA’s core product — its players and their influence — has scaled faster than the organization’s ability to manage that growth.

Modern sports are no longer just about the game. They are lifestyle, narrative and community. The league’s athletes have embraced that transformation. They have built massive digital audiences and cultural relevance far beyond the court. The question is whether league leadership can match that energy with the same boldness and adaptability that defined the WNBA’s early years.

The risk now is not collapse. It is stagnation — the quiet slide into irrelevance that happens when the engine of growth slows before the business model matures. Now, it seems that there are many frustrated players and fans, but this can’t go on for so long that this anger turns into apathy. 

A market opportunity

Every startup waits for its moment to capture market share. For the WNBA, that moment has arrived — ironically, through trouble elsewhere. The NBA is facing a major betting scandal that has shaken fan trust. In theory, this could be the WNBA’s chance to pull disillusioned fans toward a league that has built itself on credibility and community.

But internal discontent and external apathy are complicating that opportunity. Instead of conversations about expansion and innovation, headlines have focused on governance, morale and the league’s leadership gap.

In startup terms, this is what happens when an organization outgrows its original roadmap but hasn’t yet built the new one. The market is ready; the infrastructure is not. The WNBA can absolutely continue to grow, but can it do it sustainably and do so while respecting its players?

Scaling a sports empire

The WNBA’s next phase mirrors a scale-up. The early believers have been rewarded with traction. The press is paying attention. Investors, in this case, sponsors and media partners, want to see a return. But the expectations are different now. The league is no longer just an idea with promise. It is a brand with accountability, both on and off the court. 

To succeed, the WNBA needs a strategy that integrates the entrepreneurial energy of its players with the operational sophistication of a modern sports enterprise. That means rethinking leadership, marketing and fan engagement not as corporate exercises, but as opportunities to scale culture.

The league has already proven it can survive. The real test is whether it can build systems that let it thrive without losing the authenticity that made it matter in the first place. Can the league get out of its players’ way and celebrate them instead of seeing them as only liabilities?

The future of the WNBA

Every company that outgrows its startup phase faces the same choice: evolve or atrophy. The WNBA has the audience, the talent and the cultural capital to define the next era of professional sports. What it needs now is alignment: a shared vision between the people who built the league’s foundation and those tasked with guiding its future.

The startup story is over. The scaling story is just beginning.

Christina Garnett is a fractional chief customer officer, adviser and author of Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships. Her expertise ranges from Fortune 500 companies to startups, covering sectors from agencies to small businesses.