The 2025 WNBA season ended with unprecedented criticism of officiating and the leaders in charge of its improvement.
As the WNBA nears the halfway point of the 2026 season, that same topic has once again taken center stage. In some instances, poor officiating has even overshadowed the accomplishments in the league’s 30th anniversary season. Perhaps the best example arrived last week when a no-call on a loose ball play between Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas ignited days of debate and a retroactive one-game suspension for Thomas, who also received death threats.
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“It’s kind of been a discussion for three years now, and I think we really need to do a better job protecting the people in this league,” Clark said Friday. “I’ve been involved in a few of those plays, but there’s been plenty of others across the league that haven’t been called. You go back postgame or whatever it is, teams submit clips and nothing changes. I think overall the league has to do better.”
Following two years of what players, coaches and executives felt was an uptick in physicality, pleas for enhanced officiating appeared to be heard when commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced concrete measures to fix the issues at the end of the 2025 season. A task force comprised of eight general managers and coaches met during the offseason and honed in on a list of priorities, starting with calling illegal contact more regularly to allow for freedom of movement. Other incidental concerns included enforcing the defensive three-second rule, regularly calling illegal closeouts and establishing a clear understanding of the demarcation line between legal and illegal contact.
Despite the action taken this offseason, which also included hiring long-time WNBA official Eric Brewton to a newly created referee performance and development advisor position, the league is still facing a slew of complaints. The persistent concerns from general managers and coaches center on a lack of consistency and accountability, and the need for additional resources that will bring the WNBA’s officiating standards closer to those of the NBA.
Coaches and general managers from eight teams, who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity to avoid being fined, agreed that the quality of WNBA officiating remains subpar. They argued that the need for added investment into a last two-minute report, a replay center and a pipeline that keeps high-quality officials in the league is paramount.
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“Dangle a bigger carrot,” one WNBA coach said. “Pay them more money. Go get better talent to come to the W. I don’t think we have the best talent. We have the best league in the world, but we don’t have the best talent.”
Physicality has been an issue in the WNBA for years, but it reached a heightened level in 2024 — so much so that some questioned if there was a directive that came down from league leadership for officials to allow for more physical play.
The emphasis on freedom of movement by the task force — made of Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts, Fever coach Stephanie White, Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello, Connecticut Sun GM Morgan Tuck, Dallas Wings GM Curt Miller, New York Liberty GM Jonathan Kolb, Minnesota Lynx coach and president of basketball operations Cheryl Reeve, and Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon — led to an uptick in foul calls year over year. The WNBA averaged 44 fouls per game through the first 10 days of the 2026 season compared to 38.7 through the first 10 days of the 2025 season.
The league averaged roughly 39.6 fouls per game through about 20 games compared to 36.2 fouls per game through roughly 20 games last season. But there are also two new teams to account for. The WNBA totaled 9,990 personal fouls in 2025, amounting to roughly 34.9 fouls called per game throughout the entire season.
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But nearly three months into this season, there’s concern that the status quo is returning.
“Early on, there was an over-correction trying to get the freedom of movement where we want it,” a WNBA general manager said. “It’s level set. We have to be careful. There was a universal directive to minimize physicality. As it level sets, we can’t fall back into the over-physical game.”
Blatant errors and missed calls have been other key concerns throughout the first half of the season. Multiple coaches said the emphasis on enforcing the defensive three-second rule is largely being ignored.
One prime example of the more egregious officiating errors came during the Chicago Sky’s game against the Dallas Wings on June 20.
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The Sky had seen their 17-point lead cut to one with under a minute to play and possession.
On three straight possessions, officials appeared to miss three calls that impacted the outcome of the game. The first came when Sky center Kamilla Cardoso was whistled for a backcourt violation. The next came when she was whistled for a drawn foul on Li Yueru, who subsequently sank two free throws to give the Wings a one-point lead. The last was a no-call as Azurá Stevens drew contact on a shot attempt under the basket as time expired.
The league does not typically acknowledge officiating errors publicly, but after reviewing the plays, it was determined and shared with the Sky that all three were blown calls, multiple team sources told The Athletic.
In the game between the Fever and the Mercury on June 24, Kelsey Mitchell was whistled for an offensive foul with 22 seconds to play. It was her sixth foul, and she should have been immediately subbed out. Officials were unaware it was Mitchell’s sixth foul, and the Mercury inbounded the ball, before White, the Fever coach, could make the substitution.
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“I hate to say it, but that’s gross unawareness,” USA Network play-by-play analyst Meghan McPeak said on the broadcast, “in a one-possession game.”
“This should never happen,” WNBA champion and USA Network color commentator Tamika Catchings responded.
The Fever were never assessed a technical foul for the failure to immediately substitute for Mitchell.
Some coaches and GMs said the officiating pipeline is flawed, with a poor pay scale that dissuades the best candidates from pursuing the WNBA over the NBA or NCAA. Others said they think the system for turning in plays to the league is broken, with lagging response times and little improvement game to game.
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There are multiple avenues coaches and executives have for evaluating officials. They can clip plays and submit them through an online system. This avenue has been met with delays and lacks public accountability, multiple sources said.
There is also a text program that prompts head coaches to answer questions about officiating crews. The WNBA currently has a staff of 34 officials, but a third of them have four or fewer years of experience, according to one source.
“Young coaches and players have a very short window of opportunity,” one WNBA GM said. “But when it comes to officials, we have to be patient and allow this young core to gain experience? It’s contrary to all the other major positions in our league. When will this group that intentionally got younger see their growth?”
NBA and WNBA officials “get the same training” and must officiate in the G-League as part of their development before being promoted to either league, according to Monty McCutchen, the head of referee training and development across all three leagues. NBA officials can not work in the WNBA because both officiating units are unionized, according to McCutchen. Determining which officials go to which league is a combination of preference for each official and qualifications. There are separating factors — above-the-rim play is one example — that influence how officials are placed.
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Successfully addressing concerns over the league’s officiating, coaches and GMs said, starts with improved communication measures and accountability as well as enhanced resources.
Unlike the NBA, the WNBA does not have an offsite replay center, which allows for objective decisions by a third party. The last two-minute report, which is a play-by-play report of all calls and non-calls in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime period for all games that “meet designated criteria,” has been available for NBA games since the 2017-18 season.
McCutchen and Sue Blauch, the WNBA’s head of referee performance and development, have said they would welcome a L2M report, but a lack of resources has prevented its implementation. McCutchen told The Athletic, “we’re moving towards those resources.”
The WNBA’s current replay system is provided by Hawk-Eye. It uses camera shots provided by the league’s broadcast partners in addition to tracking cameras provided by Genius Sports/Second Spectrum. Part of improving the league’s replay system would require standardizing camera angles in every arena. Arenas that are shared between NBA and WNBA teams have all available angles while non-NBA arenas aren’t equipped the same.
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Coaches and GMs have brought up investment in standardized camera angles and a replay center every year during competition meetings, but have been informed it’s a resource issue.
Bethany Donaphin, the WNBA’s head of league operations, said the league is evaluating how it can use technology to advance the game and improve officiating but had “nothing to report” pertaining to a replay center.
As the league awaits resources to fund what coaches and general managers believe are required tools to successfully officiate games, some said teams should have at least two challenge calls. Others want the league to start publicly acknowledging blown calls and egregious errors, and almost all mentioned improvements to the pay model in order to attract better officials.
“Money is at the forefront at all times,” one GM said. “You get what you pay for.”
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No one is under the impression that perfection is attainable. But the concern from coaches and general managers is that each game that features egregious officiating errors threatens the perception of the league.
“I certainly think (poor officiating) is impacting the legitimacy of our product to fans and to people who are tuning in for the first time,” a WNBA general manager said.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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