Diana Taurasi, Cathy Engelbert & Kristyn Cook on WNBA’s Huge Growth, Haters & Future of the League

The vitriol and everything that our players receive is unacceptable, but there's so much good in the game right now. There's so many good stories that players are putting out on the court. Biles drops it off. She's an illusionist. Those keyboard warriors on social media with no accountability and just continue to condemn what they're doing and try to get that out of the sport because it has no place in our sport for sure. Everybody knows that if anybody had an amazing relationship with officials, They've been wonderful, by the way. I don't know why everyone's complaining. If you think the game is physical now, go back and watch some of those finals 15, 16 years ago. Adding the defensive three seconds, that's taking away a lot of the physicality. It's just certain things that players and as coaches, you have to reimagine what the game looks like. Hi ladies. How are you? Good. Good afternoon. We've got limited time. And so we're just going to get right down to it. Kathy, it feels like a few years ago, those of us that are covering the WNBA, the question was, can this league grow? And now I see op-eds that are like, the league is growing too fast. Are you surprised at all about the speed of this movement or was there a tipping point that told you that we were going to be here this soon? Yeah, I think there was like, shout out for the goat here, Diana Taurasi. I think there was like a moment where there was the convergence of a lot of different things. People like Kristen Cook, looking at investment in women's sports, the quality of our game, scaling our game a little bit. When I came in, I think we had 80 of our 240 games on national platforms. Now this year we'll have over 220. So if you build it, they will come. So I think it was just the confluence of all that. But really this investment by our corporate partners, investment of everybody now, like women's sports, the sub-asset class, everybody's looking at it from an investment perspective. And then just having the incredible play on the court and having the popularity of the game at the NCAA level globally now. I think we used to be 8% players outside the US. Now we're 30%-ish. So just kind of the confluence of all that all coming together. I love what you said too, the part about it being like a real business strategy because I remember having to speak at Women's Summit a few years back and they're like, appeal to the fact that everyone in the audience has a mother, you know? And it's like, be courageous and do it because it's the right thing to do. And now we just know it's a great business strategy. A peek inside when you're trying to come up with questions as a journalist, you write what you really want to say and then you try to figure out a softer way to say it. So Diana, this one's for you. I'm trying to figure out a way to ask this question that is not basically saying, Diana, are you bitter that everything that you sowed in the league other people are reaping now? I'm so happy for them from the bottom of my heart. They must not know me very well. No, look, whenever you're embedded in a company in a business for 20 years, something that I, you know, is my passion, my love, the thing that I wanted to do the most in my whole life was to play basketball and to be a pro and to be respected and paid like one. And when you leave something 20 years later and it's better than when you found it, I think a lot of the players, you know, present and past, they find solace in that. And to me that is a beautiful thing and how far we've come in 30 years is a long way and there's still, yeah, a lot to come. But when we talk about this last four or five years, we always talk about moments in sports, especially in women's sports. It's nothing like it right now. The energy, the momentum, the eyes, like you said, the chatter around the game, that's what we've always wanted. And, you know, when you put that together with the business plan and the new CBA, well, now you feel the worth of what it means to be a professional basketball player in this country as a woman where, you know, we've had to go to Russia and Turkey and Spain for a lot of years where now we're staying home and this is where, you know, we want to do what we love the most and that's to play the game that we want to grow and build for the next generation. Kristen, State Farm, as I mentioned, has been, has had skin in the game for a very long time. Obviously, it's really, really catchy right now to want to be involved in the WNBA. What did you guys say originally so many years ago that told you that this was a space that you wanted to be a part of? Yeah, I think it all starts with who our brand is and what we stand for. It's about people and relationships and communities and how we bring good neighbor values to that. And as a marketer, we're always looking for ways where we can seize those moments, those opportunities to turn those actions from those words into storytelling. And so basketball has been a big part of our narrative for some time. Obviously, we've had a long-standing partnership with the NBA. We've supported women's sports for over 20 years. So when the W came along, it made sense in terms of making that commitment. But we believed in the league. We believed in these incredible players, the growing fandom, and then the potential. And then you kind of see over time as the league has grown, we've been able to grow with it. And we have this authentic credibility that we've been able to connect with not just fans, but also with the athletes too. And so I'm very proud in this 30th historic season that we can say that investing in the WNBA is good business. And it's part of our business strategy. And it's our growth outcome. And so it was all about realizing the potential from the very beginning, investing for the long term, and growing with the league and these amazing players. By the way, and a bowler from Syracuse University right here too. Okay. Nice one. Let's go. Not quite UConn, Diana, but Syracuse. Which you did beat us several times. I would say the way that she just said Big East, I couldn't tell if it was like a Big East or like a Big East. Old school. A little bit of both. You mentioned the attention and the spotlight being incredibly bright. And Cathy, we all know that it's never been bigger, but the divisiveness has never been as big as it is right now surrounding this league. How do you grow the game without making sure that toxicity is not a part of its identity? Unfortunately, as you all know, you know, in a divisive country, we're like this microcosm of broader society. And obviously the vitriol and everything that our players receive, and I'm sure Diana can remember this, is unacceptable. But there's so much good in the game right now. There's so many good stories that players are putting out on the court. I mean, Olivia Miles for the Minnesota Lynx as a rookie is killing it. Marina Mabry tying the all-time record with Asia Wilson, a 53-point game. And just so many other stories with, you know, Asia and Paige and Kaitlyn and Angel. And so, I mean, just incredible stories. So you do need to continue to show the great in this game and what they do off the court and the community involvement, everything they do. So I know a lot of the focus is on the negativity. But, you know, these players every day admire what they do, the grind, what they go through. And they're, again, very optimistic about the future. And we do need to take that, kind of those keyboard warriors on social media with no accountability and just continue to condemn what they're doing and try to get that out of the sport because it has no place in our sport for sure. And it's a challenge because I've solved a lot of complex things in my career before I even got here. And this is a challenge because it's social media, it's societal. And we've got to find better ways of doing it. We've employed some technology for players, some mental health resources, physical security, digital security. We're trying every angle we can and we're looking for input from others as well. But it also means, like, everybody's following everything WNBA players do now. And there's no more apathy. But again, the vitriol part of it, we need to continue to condemn and get out of the game. But we also need to story tell about the greatness of this game and these great players that stand on Diana's huge shoulders and a lot of our legends over the 30 years. Yeah, I'm holding a lot of these things at once. I get asked this question quite a lot considering that I'm in this space as a journalist. And it's the idea that it means your business is booming when that's all anybody wants to talk about. When people are being negative, right? The idea that there's no such bad thing as PR. The idea that you can't police social media. But also the idea that the players are asking for protection. So what does that look like knowing there are certain roadblocks to what you can and can't do? How can we actually protect players? Yeah, again, it's to continue to talk about why this is so unacceptable. And again, we have some tools and technologies that can actually make sure players don't get that kind of vitriol through kind of something called Social Protect, our No Space for Hate platform, things like that. We need advocates like Kristen and other of our corporate partners to help us. Other organizations that, you know, know how great this week is with 80% women of color. And so we'll continue to chip at it as well as just, you know, on the officiating. I know everyone complains about officiating, but we have a state of the game committee in the offseason made up of players, college coaches, GMs, officials. And then we did an officiating task force which watched 50 to 100 hours of film each. To talk about the physicality of the game on the court because I think that spurs some of this narrative on when there's this physicality on the court. But Diana knows this has been a physical game long before. Well, I want to ask you that because, I mean, everybody knows that if anybody had an amazing relationship with officials, it was Diana Taurasi. And I'm wondering, is the physicality... They've been wonderful, by the way. I don't know why everyone's complaining. Is the physicality fundamentally that different than when you... Look, the game is different. And it's changed over the last 10 years. If you think the game is physical now, go back and watch some of those finals 15, 16 years ago. But I think that goes across any sport, right? You try to evolve, you try to make the game better and that's freedom of movement. You want to see players, you know, actually be able to put all their skills into play during the game. You know, you see it right now in the World Cup how the game is different than it was, you know, in the 90s. And that's what we're transitioning right now. And that's the responsibility of the league, the refs, the coaches, and the players. You can set the tone as a player how physical the game is going to be and then the refs can calculate how they want that to change. But, you know, adding the defensive three seconds, which we didn't have when I played, that's taking away a lot of the physicality. It's just certain things that, as players and as coaches, you have to reimagine what the game looks like. And I don't know, from a player and coach standpoint, we're not doing a great job of that either. You know, if you have coaches trying to beat the ---- out of everyone and then they complain about physicality, well, then you're at fault too. And at the same time, you know, we all have to get better. The referees got to get better, the officials got to get better. You know, on the league side, we have to do a better job of making sure we know what are certain things that we want our players to be able to do, not do, the way our game looks. I think we're at an all-time high where we're adding teams. We need players to be able to go out there and show what they can do, you know, on the skillset side of things. And you see that in Glimpses and that's why the league is booming right now. But I think we've made huge progress in what Diana's talking about around the pace of the game, better pace. We have the highest scoring, offensive scoring in the history right now, halfway through the season. The offensive efficiency is off the charts. So I think the freedom of movement changes we made in the offseason are working. Not everybody likes it, but the freedom of movement's much better and the quality of the game, especially with bringing in three expansion teams over the last two years. And like the Golden State Valkyries are in second place right now in their second year in the league. And Portland and Toronto are killing it too already. So I mean, I think it just proves that the more you grow, the better it is in the end. Kristen, when the conversation around a sport becomes polarizing, what's the marketer's role? Yeah, I think at the end of the day, and hey, we understand we're in the insurance business and it's a very complex business too. And so I think with explosive growth oftentimes comes these growing pains and challenges. And so from our perspective, and I think it goes back to what Kathy said, is that we want to help grow the game, right? And right now, with the focus on these amazing games that are happening and now with the expansion teams coming into play, these athletes and telling their stories at the end of the day. And so for us, it's kind of a formula. It's the ecosystem that we get to lean into to do our part. And so first and foremost, it's to put great creative out there, right, to catch attention. And then it's also to use the strength that we have around media to kind of scale that attention and those athlete partnerships. They make the human connection and when we story tell that helps people care about that. And then you wrap that around activations like we're going to have next week at the WNBA All-Star where you're showcasing the best of the best. Like that's our responsibility as a brand and we will continue to invest because we're in it for the long term. We were there at the very beginning and we're going to kind of ride along with them too. And so I know our other brand partners, we say the same thing. So we're going to control what we can control and continue to invest. And I think like you said, everyone has to do their part and we as a brand feel like we're a part of that too. This is obviously a business minded panel. This is being brought to us by CNBC. So if today's conversation is about growth and sort of looking ahead at the next frontier, this question is for all of you. I'll start down here with Dee as we as we put a button on this. What do you think is the opportunity that everyone in this room should be paying attention to over the next five years when it comes to the WNBA? I mean, the W is going nowhere. We've been here for 30 years. We've been through the highs, the lows. We've been through it all. You know, we've always mimicked and we've mirrored social change in so many ways, being in the Wubble, the work we did there. And I think our biggest advantage and our greatest strength as players and as the WNBA is we always stay together. We're strength in numbers and you have the most dedicated women on and off the court that you'll ever find during the WNBA. You know, we're there to grow the game. We're there to be the best athletes to be, you know, masters at our craft and, you know, the same people that didn't support us are supporting us now. So just stay with it a little bit longer. I love that you said so just very quickly, though, the divisiveness that we talked about, the narratives that are surrounding maybe from fans. You don't think that exists inside the WNBA itself? I mean, you can feel it as a player. I mean, when you have to deal with, you know, homophobia and racism every turn, you know, early in my career, that's all it was everywhere we went. Every arena was, you know, basically being thrown with rotten tomatoes. But our fan base is the core of our fan base has always been there. And that's what's kept us going. And, you know, the more fans that we had, the more viewers, the young kids that are watching now. And I think you said something really important. The platform that we're on now is pretty incredible to be able to watch games at every turn. I think that visibility is really, really made the WNBA what it is right now. What about you, Kristen? Where's the most growth opportunity over the next five years? You think people should be paying attention? Yeah, I think, you know, it's very clear. And you said it. WNBA is good business, right? And so as the game grows, you have the opportunity for brands to grow. And so we care about consumers and audiences and we want to make meaningful connections with them and meet them where they are and their fandom and their passions. And sports is it, right? And the growth of women's sports is the opportunity that we clearly see. And so how you lean in to all the things that I talked about earlier, but then there also is kind of this younger generation that's coming through, too. And so for us, we start at the very beginning. We're also investing in overtime and those young high school athletes there as well. We're in the NCAA with NIL deals to kind of follow the players as they go. And then certainly, we'll continue to do all the things in the W, the creative, the league deals. We have now over 50% of teams that we work with now that we get to activate our brand assets with and the athletes. But social is really important, too. And so people are consuming things in very bite-sized way. And so storytelling is really key. And so I think looking for this opportunity to showcase all of the great athletes, I think that's really where the opportunity is. I'll let you finish it out. Well, one, I know some of you really love data out there. We already have had 63 million plus unique viewers for WNBA games this year. That's halfway through the season. That's what we had last year for the whole season. So if you don't think this is a growth stock and in growth mode and really just proud of obviously was contentious, but it kind of had to be the CBA over 30 players now. Sound million million signed million dollar plus contracts. So I see like the sky's the limit for this week. There's going to be many more to come. These players coming in a Juju Watkins, a Hannah Hidalgo, Michaela Blakes coming in over the next few years. And I'm told the U17 players, wait till you see them come in this week. So I think there's decades of growth to come. The future is bright. We will close with one quick rapid-fire question. Diana wasn't prepared for this. Who is your favorite current WNBA player to watch? Paige, no doubt. Kristen? I mean, certainly Caitlin's part of Team Safe Arm, but right now, Olivia Miles. She has the game, the look, and then what the slam, like, cover t-shirt. Yeah, that's got it all. It's so impressive. I'm clearly going to absolve you of this question. She knows I can't answer that. She can answer it. I'll give you another one, Kathy. You're walking around out here at Fanatics Fest. You see which celebrity or athlete and you are making them take a picture because you're fangirling. Oh, if Serena Williams were here, it's Serena. Just became an owner in our Toronto Tempo team. Let's go. Kathy, Kristen, Diana, thank you so much. Round of applause for them and thank you for your attention.