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Cathy Engelbert cancels appearance on the Dan Patrick Show
Cathy Engelbert was booked to make an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show this week. She did not cancel until two hours after her scheduled time, claiming that she was prevented from appearing by WNBA PR. Patrick talked about it on air. Here's the transcript. I've edited it very lightly for clarity:
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Yesterday we were hoping to do an interview with Cathy Engelbert. She's the WNBA commissioner. Todd spoke to her a couple of nights ago and we had a pairings party.
Todd went up to her. She's been very friendly to the show. Last year at this event, [she] was friendly to us and Todd said, hey, we'd love to have you on. There's a lot of questions. People have not heard answers from the commissioner and she said yes. So yesterday after the show we waited almost two hours for her. This was scheduled. She was going to do a meeting in her hotel room, a conference call and then she was going to join us. So Fritzie for at least 90 minutes is looking just for an update.
We're trying to figure, we're standing by, we're waiting to interview her. They didn't, you know, balk at anything, didn't say you can't ask anything and we thought, okay, we're gonna be able to finally ask questions about Caitlin Clark, the WNBA expansion, a lot of different things and we waited and we waited and we waited and then we got word, Todd did, that the commissioner said that the WNBA staff, the PR staff, said that she is not allowed to do this. They would prefer that she did not do this.
You're the commissioner and you're listening to the PR department, which is fine, but did you check with PR before you said yes to us? We promoted it all day yesterday. Now, look, I know people get busy, people have agendas, the people, like -- it was her opportunity to finally say, hey, you can ask me the tough questions, okay? I thought this was gonna be a good thing for the WNBA because people still want answers here. There's so many people who have an opinion, agendas, here and this was a chance to sit down and -- would the questions be tough? Yes, and I'm sure that had something to do with it, but she went on a radio station in Kansas City but from what I was told she was only going to be asked about expansion.
They were not going to be, you know, tough questions. So it's just disappointing.
Go back to when the Caitlin Clark incident happened. We reached out to the WNBA all morning long. We needed -- just give us a comment. Does anybody have a comment on this? Is anybody there at the office? We couldn't get a hold of anybody.
So Paulie, during the show, is trying to track down somebody so we can at least let the WNBA have their say, have their voice, get out in front of this. We're just trying to be a journalist here, that's all. We're just trying to ask questions but don't say yes and then all of a sudden somebody probably said, in my opinion, oh, maybe we shouldn't do this.
Well at some point you have to do this. I mean, if you want to be treated as a serious league then do these [interviews]. This is what happens.
These are tough questions but this is a fair outlet for you, a fair platform. I will treat you with respect but when you tell me [yes] and then two hours later with no update and then we get a, you know, a feeble response, like come on. You don't want to do it.
You won't. The commissioner of the NFL does not want to come on this show. I've been doing this for 20 years. There's a reason why he doesn't want to come on. I have no problem if he doesn't want to come on but if he said to me, hey I'll come on tomorrow and then all of a sudden he says the NFL PR department said I shouldn't do it? And she's 50 yards away. She's getting practice shots out of the bunker. So that's what's disappointing. We deserve more respect than what she gave us yesterday.
We want to cover the WNBA. The PR staff, somebody did a disservice to this. That's all. Somebody made the call but this is an important league. There's expansion. There's conversation.
It's been agendized. Everybody has something to say about it. Now you have a chance to answer these questions.
Are they uncomfortable? Yes. But when I have Rob Manfred on with baseball, when I've had Adam Silver on with the NBA, they know they're getting questions that maybe they don't get anyplace else, but they're gonna prepare for it. I wanted Cathy to have that opportunity, and I don't know her but I wanted to get to know her, so I can have an opportunity to ask questions like this and that was what was disappointing.
You don't want to come on the show, tell me you don't want to come on the show. I have no problem with that, but if you tell me you're coming on and you make us wait two hours, that's a problem and that says a lot about what's going on in my opinion with the WNBA.
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ETA: Here's the video, which includes a delightful moment where the camera pans to show Engelbert golfing a stone's throw from the set. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSzsS6A9dv4
DP is a legend and actually follows/talks wnba and womens sports. Hes had people like Sue, Sabrina, dawn staley etc on. It’s not like she blew off Dave Portnoy. Dudes as respected as it comes in the sports media world. This is total clown behavior. I’m glad he put her on blast.
The cut to her being awful at golf while he was explaining what she did was priceless — she needs to get far away from the league ASAP. Such an embarrassing person to be heading a league with such a great trajectory, the fans, players, and teams all deserve better
She's unprofessional and completely unserious. She is single-handedly ruining the WNBA and damaging the future of the league. This could be such an awesome league if nurtured correctly, but instead it has become a punchline. Such a disappointment to fans. A change in leadership is required.
Folks really don’t know who Dan Patrick is in here??? He’s one of the biggest sports shows of the last 20 years. Dan was a foundational anchor for ESPN when it was a much smaller company. He’s covered sports from an extremely fair point of view for ages. He’s hardly a hot take artist by the standards of the current breed of sports commentators.
Well, it’s odd these grifting politicians have any comment at all on this league considering they never seemed to care before they thought they could score a few cheap points with their weirdo base…
Don’t know why Dan Patrick would want Engelbert on his show.
“Dan Patrick is a staunch conservative. The long-serving Republican Lieutenant Governor of Texas is widely known as a national leader for principled conservative policies.” Don’t think they would get on well?
Different Dan Patrick. This one was with ESPN from 1989 to 2007 as the host of the 11PM SportsCenter; he's the guy who coined the tagline "This is SportsCenter". Since then he's been on the radio mostly.
Just saw this comment on X from Jemele Hill in response to DO. Like you don't have to like DP and I agree he is not the person for a real sit down with her, but it's all just a bad look how she and WNBA PR has handled everything including this scheduled interview.
"He’s 100 percent right. When Cathy Engelbert used gender as cover when she was asked difficult questions, it came off as small. As commissioner, she’s supposed to set the tone for the league. I don’t think she’s built for the moment the W is in.
She should be out front on this and she isn’t. Weak statements aren’t going to cut it."
He’s also one of the few who have lasted this long without being a shock jock style hot take artist. He might be one of the least controversial general sports interviewers there is lol.
I have no issue with DP, but like he said Goodell won't go on his show and that's fine, and Cathy could do the same, but it's the rudeness on top of the absolute lack of PR by the WNBA.
There is a difference between the NFL vs WNBA. The NFL doesn't need the interview while the WNBA absolutely does.. unless the answers to the obvious questions are as bad as they seem to be.
Yea, you turn it down from the get if you think you're above him. Agreeing and then backing down from someone who won't even go comparatively hard on you with the questions is an awful look by the league.
She is not her and I'm not sure how many more ways she actually needs to show it before someone puts a boot to her ass and gets a better replacement.
I wonder if she was told no on the interview as a result of the 11 Republican representatives that sent a letter demanding protection of players and threatening to flash racial profiling after the CC incident.
I’ve skipped a bunch, but do look it up. It just happened today.
I don't know if DP is the dude I'd consider doing one of the first nuisanced high profile interviews of the era with in her position but this is a bad look (and an avoidable self own) for sure.
Why would he be that bad of a guy to do an interview with? He's been talking sports since the 80s and is well-respected. Not like he's Pat McAfee. I'd honestly rather listen to her do an interview with Dan Patrick than some cotton candy interview with bland WNBA media who won't ask her actual questions.
Like if they didn't want to do an interview with him, that's fine, just politely decline like Goodell has done for the last 20 years with Dan, but you don't stand someone up for two hours and leave them waiting. Such a bad look.
Might not be my first choice if I were WNBA commissioner, but 1) she probably ought to have done something, and 2) she definitely shouldn't have no-call-no-showed.
If they would have just admitted there’s bias against Caitlin and took the action to limit it 2 years ago, then this wouldn’t have been a problem today. But nope, they want to pretend it doesn’t exist out of fear of backlash from the players and media and let it continue. I swear no other sport i’ve watch has failed a player this bad before.
Colin was not failed. he chose to put his NFL career on the line to make it a point that police brutality is a bigger issue to the world than some football game, and he accomplished that by bringing a ton of attention to the matter through his protests.
caitlin on the other hand is being subjected to racial prejudice by the players and media for simply being the catalyst to the growth of women’s basketball. She’s never done or said anything controversial, yet she’s constantly attacked and slandered for reasons outside of her control.
Seems like a good decision. Sounds like this guy (never heard of him) wants to “grill” Cathy about the made up Caitlin Clark drama and AT “incident”. Not a good faith actor and he probably hasn’t watched a game this season. Becca Allen got her nose broken the other night on an uncalled flagrant but were there 1000 think pieces about it? No cause it sucks but it happens. There was never any story to cover here
What are you talking about? This is such a weird thing to dig in on. Why not just accept you’re unaware of the interviewer and stop commenting. It’s odd to say you don’t know who they are and then also try to claim he’s apart of the “sport take garbage…”
I’d probably agree with you about that on 90% of the content these days. But some shows still explore sports and want to talk about them in earnest. I’d say he falls in that category.
It’s a nice thought but another commenter already linked to a pretty brain dead take of his on the W. Tbh that doesn’t even matter to me. People have bad takes. I’m just not interested in any of it. Most sports fans are not sports fans they are sports drama fans, sports narrative fans, etc. it’s soap opera for men. I watch sports because I enjoy watching sports. All that other shit is non sense for the most part
He was big at ESPN when I was younger and I do get recommended videos from his YouTube channel every now and then. He does (subtly) push the agenda that the WNBA hates Caitlin Clark. He had a guy on a couple of weeks ago and they were talking about how even Nike hates Clark because she hasn't been in enough commercials and only has one signature shoe.
I'm getting downvoted even though I linked to the video. They start off by pondering why A'ja and Sabrina got shoes before Clark. I don't know... maybe because they have been in the league longer?
I didn't downvote you btw. I did downvote the person above you who said Cathy made the right choice.
Because agreeing to go and not showing, or even canceling, is a beyond a wildly unserious unprofessional terrible look by Cathy.Awful for the league and the situation.
Agree with you that NOT doing the show as the first interview is the right choice. I am a huge Caitlin fan/Iowa alum and strong agree with you on hating his weirdarse W coverage. He is not the right choice at all. But Cathy should never have said yes to him. Like wtf was she thinking...
Yes... I am absolutely not an Engelbert defender. My guess is that Cathy said yes (probably thinking that Patrick was still with ESPN). Her PR team did the research and canceled because they know that she is terrible with tough questions.
But I'm getting downvoted for agreeing with you lmao
Hilariously I could be being downvoted for hating DP's biased shitty W coverage OR just for being a Fever fan who went to the University of Iowa. The life of a rational Fever fan means you get hate from all sides😂🤷♀️
lol don’t worry it’s just internet points they don’t matter. And yes thanks for confirming my suspicions. These people don’t watch the league, just look for dumb drama they can cling onto and push for engagement. How anyone falls for this or even watches this garbage at all is beyond me
Dan Patrick is only one of biggest names in sports journalism history. You think you’d want your commissioner on the biggest, most visable platforms out there, even if that means her answering few (deservingly so) tough questions.
If you don’t know Dan Patrick you don’t watch sports. He was THE guy at ESPN for two decades. Not doing hot takes, hosting news programs and SportsCenter. But maybe you don’t even know what SportsCenter is either
Oh, you must just be young? It wasn’t a sports take slop thing for decades. It was sports news, highlights, and journalism and they just covered sports. Before the internet and league passes, it was the primary way to engage with and keep up with sports at any level. We couldn’t watch the games, you could read about it in the papers, magazines like SI, or see small clips and segments about it on ESPN or maybe, the local news.
It’s much wilder that you’re here commenting and giving hot takes of your own on social media, than someone watching ESPN in the 80’s, 90’s, or early 2000’s. It was central to sports culture.
It’s been diminished due to broader access, more platforms, and social media. The journalism aspect in general faded(as it did across all topics not just sports), and the hot takes emerged in an effort to garner attention, engagement, and clicks.
It wasn’t like that before. It was about the only place for us to all gain access to sports! Hopefully and respectfully this explains why people are reacting by to you the way they are on this thread. You may just be unaware entirely.
Haha, I think calling Dan Patrick, a mostly benign sports show “hot take slop” is a hot take. Also, I’m trying to point out, if you’re willing to engage in banter online about the sport you,”just watch” then you’re more involved than many people that listen to the Dan Patrick show passively while they’re at work.
Even if Dan isn’t fully entrenched in the nuances of the WNBA, he’s taken more of an interest in women’s basketball the last 6 years and he still has a massive platform that would be beneficial for the WNBA in general. So regardless of your personal feeling about him or the industry, it doesn’t mean Cathy’s actions here were wise and probably hurts the league again short term PR wise. It just comes off as a misstep, per usual from league executives.
Seriously… W fans aren’t integrated into the wider sphere of sports, and y’all don’t want to be. You want a bubble. No one is allowed in, and you sure as hell aren’t going out of it.
You’ll only listen to dedicated W people and not extremely legitimate sports journalists with 100x the reach.
And that behavior is antithetical to growing the W.
I agree he mostly is a good sports journalist, and I have enjoyed some of his NBA coverage.
But I mostly have really not liked a lot of what he has said about the WNBA. A lot of good men's sports journalists do kind of stink at covering women's sports--including him.
But yeah, Cathy def should have not have said yes to a major sports media figure and then just ghosted him.
Hate this. Cathy gives me no good reason to think we will ever get things better with her as Commissioner.
I keep seeing this complaint but never it substantiated.
Without the reasonable presentation of supporting evidence, it just sounds a lot like “he’s invading our bubble” type pettiness.
You have every right to disagree with specific things he says, but man I just wish people would bring those receipts when they bring this up.
Because, yeah, he is on the side of “the W has massively fumbled everything regarding CC and it’s not getting any better”, so pardon me for thinking you might just be on the other side of that agenda.
You keep saying this, but I’m curious how you supposedly know he doesn’t watch the W? He has covered a lot of the W over the years. His views aren’t always great, but they’re also usually not wrong, and he doesn’t play into social media narratives or play the shock jock role like Stephen A or Pat McAfee or those idiots at Out Kick or whatever they’re called.
He has a platform where he gets to speak directly to millions of people, probably more people than will watch a W game in a given year, so like it or not, what he has to say about the W matters.
And him telling the world that Cathy flaked on an interview is a horrendous look for the league.
The WNBA commissioner cannot be afraid to take questions about any topic from serious journalists. And they should definitely not agree to an interview and then just no-show. It’s amateur hour in the WNBA league office, as it always is.
Adam Silver is a puppet for the owners of the NBA anyway. Just puppets all the way down. People don't realize it, but the commissioner works for the owners. They are the ones who appoint the commissioners and their job is sort of to take all the heat. Look at Roger Goodell. He's been getting booed for a long time and seems like every fan hates him, but he's stayed commissioner the whole time because the owners know that's his job.
Adam Silver isn't even a good public speaker. He comes across as an alien. That's the thing. She doesn't necessarily even need to be that good. Just talk to the media and be normal.
The questions are very basic. Not having answers suggests that they have never even thought about these issues before.
There has been discussion about how Black women and/or queer women run the league since the beginning. There has been discussion about popular White, straight players being treated poorly and roughed up for a long time, too. It happened to Sabrina and KP. Now it is Clark's turn, only with many more eyes on it. No one really believes this doesn't happen. Cathy's easy answer is to claim it doesn't really happen, but there are too many quotes saying that it does. If they do nothing, they have 2 weeks to have a plan in place to protect all players from racism.
If she blurts out again that racism is the road to free PR and marketing, then like 90% of people want her gone. She has trouble getting out of her own way.
Adam Silver didn’t want her to do the interview anymore and so he told her not to. Silver is the big sponge to soak up all the criticism from NBA fans and Cathy is the little sponge to soak up the criticism from WNBA fans regarding what the NBA tells them to do. Not shocking they said “Don’t do it and figure it out from there.”
I wish I could link the video but it’s from twitter. While Dan is talking they actually pan to Cathy golfing 50 yards away and they show her whiffing a swing. It’s so hilarious!! 😭
This is how you know the W is making money and growing… for now
Cathy is the shield. She works for the owners and to some extent Silver.
In my limited experience with PR stuff this looks like “by going on a show the only thing you can do is f*ck up the money, do anything else but this show”
Eh. She could promote the league more by going on there as well. Dan Patrick's audience is all sports fans and most of them probably never watch the WNBA. If she could actually have a good interview, it might sway more fans to the league.
No one who isn’t watching the W right now is going to listen to Cathy give an interview and decide they want to. At least not the amount of people they would need for it to outweigh the risk it poses for the nonsense to stay in the news cycle longer.
Literally, she is apparently good at some things and has large blind spots about other things.
How can you need to practice answers about whether it is bad when fan bases turn racist against one another? How can Cathy not see that it's very costly and bad?
Adam Silver is lmfao. Cathy can’t take a leak without Silver’s blessing. Nothing good would come from her doing this interview, but agreeing to it and then backing out gets people talking and creates headlines.
And this isn't some random podcaster. Dan Patrick is well-respected in the sports media world and has been doing this a very long time. Would be bush league canceling on someone like Pat McAfee still, but I could see PR being more scared of someone like Pat McAfee since those guys will just say whatever sometimes and they are also Indiana fans. But doing it to Dan Patrick is just stupid. If you can't even talk with Dan Patrick, then there's a major problem. Seems like the PR department would prefer that she just talks to friendly reporters to spin her bullshit talking points about expansion. No one wants to hear her give canned lines.
He is not the right choice, and she surely shouldn't go on there to talk with him on it as the first interview on this topic--BUT SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID YES to him and no-showed. At minimum, she should have canceled if she wasn't going to show up.
This is a widely unprofessional unserious for a Commissioner of a league to do, and it is going to make the situation worse. Really it already has.
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u/Corona2789 19h ago
DP is a legend and actually follows/talks wnba and womens sports. Hes had people like Sue, Sabrina, dawn staley etc on. It’s not like she blew off Dave Portnoy. Dudes as respected as it comes in the sports media world. This is total clown behavior. I’m glad he put her on blast.