Carmelo Anthony Says Next WNBA Commissioner Must 'Protect the Players' but Doesn't Say From What

Former NBA player Carmelo Anthony told OutKick what he would do first if he were WNBA commissioner.

His answer: "I'm going to invest in the players."

Anthony is not a candidate. He won't be in the running for the job, but he has enjoyed the rise of the "W." The job is open all the same. Cathy Engelbert is retiring at the end of the 2026 calendar year, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the WNBA Board of Governors will choose her replacement.

What Anthony said

Anthony leaned on a movie metaphor. "You have to invest in the script. If you have no script, there's no movie, there's no film. You have to invest in the script, and the script in this case is the players."

Then he got to the safety point. "We have to protect the players. We have to protect them all across the board if we really want people to look at this league as the best women's league in the world."

He did not elaborate on what the players need protecting from. No specifics on arena security, travel, online abuse or anything else.

He was clearer on process. "This is a partnership. It's not like, 'You work for me.' No, we work together to build this," Anthony said. "I want to hear the good, the bad, the ugly." He said that if he came in with only his business acumen, he would have "a whole other vision for it," and that it has to be a collaborative situation.

The league he'd be inheriting

The WNBA is in its 30th season, and the business numbers are strong. The league counted more than 91 million unique viewers across national broadcasts this season, more than double the prior season's reach.

Attendance totaled 3.8 million. There were 212 sellouts. Average attendance rose to 11,474 per game, a 21% jump over the previous WNBA high.

That is the pitch a new commissioner walks into. The problems come with it.

Eligibility and anthem fights

Transgender athlete eligibility became a widespread debate this season after Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham publicly opposed biological men competing in women's sports. Two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, then declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft, citing the league's rules.

The league's collective bargaining agreement says "only players who are women are eligible to play," but Engelbert and the rest of the league have not provided a detailed definition of a woman, which is why people like Freedom and White continue to speak out.

The dispute has spilled into on-court altercations. Freedom was kicked out of a Chicago Sky-Fever game after Natasha Cloud confronted him at his baseline seat. Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton was suspended and fined by the league after a courtside confrontation in which she threw expletives at two teenage fans supporting Cunningham.

National anthem protests are the other open sore. In these WNBA Finals, the Golden State Valkyries and Atlanta Dream have repeatedly walked off the court before the national anthem, drawing massive criticism given the league's traditional expectation that teams stand in a line for the Star-Spangled Banner.

Anthony's remarks did not address any of this, and he did not tie his "protect the players" line to any of it.

What comes next

The hire is the next concrete event. Engelbert's retirement was officially announced on September 4, 2026, and takes effect at the end of the calendar year. She has said she has been working on identifying her successor for three years.

Before Game 1 of the Finals, Engelbert herself raised player safety as a task for her successor, citing "the attention and the vitriol that's unacceptable that our players get" and the need to figure out "how to support the safety of our players."

Whoever gets the job inherits record viewership and attendance, a draft-eligibility dispute that has already drawn two former NBA players, anthem walk-offs during the Finals, and a commissioner's office that Anthony says must work with players rather than over them.