Y-your take on how the league is handling this situation and how important it is that they-- it is that they get it right ultimately.

It's, um-- You know, I'm, I'm loathe to pass judgment here and won't, but I will share that for any sports league, um, the, uh, the performance of your officials is, is of paramount importance, and fans may not understand just how much time and energy goes into running a, a major league officiating program.

And I-- You know, Kelly knows as well as anybody because that was part of her job when she was, uh, on, on our staff early on at the WNBA.

There's-- You know, there's no place in sports for hard fouls, for, uh, the possibility of injury to any player.

And so any league really has to be very attentive to that, has to be probably, I would say, a mix of, um, reactive and proactive.

I think if you sense that sort of, you know, things are moving in a certain direction, it's incumbent on, I think, on the league to, um, to sort of offer directives to make sure there's adequate communication, that their expectations are made known to the players and the coaches and the officials alike.

I mean, it's really, you know, everybody's in on safe-- a safe playing environment for players.

What's your take on the, the changing landscape of collegiate athletics?

Down,

elbow to elbow.

When the league was sort of hatched, the vision was that it would become, our mantra was that it would become the fifth major league.

We were sort of looking at the NBA and the NFL and Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League as the big four.

And the vision was that someday women's professional basketball would be in that sort of tier, on that level.

Val Ackerman, the WNBA's first president and current commissioner of the Big East Conference, says choosing what time of year the league would play games

was a key to success.

The summer, I think, was probably one of the biggest decisions.

How did you think about shifting focus to basketball and maintaining momentum?

Well, I would say, first of all, it's great to be with my colleague, Sherrie.

Um, for me, that part was easy because I'm, I'm, I'm sort of a basketball head.

Um, my, my background has been as a player.

Uh, I worked for many years at the professional level in the sport.

And so when the opportunity presented itself to me to, in, in effect, bring back the Big East, that part, um, not having football, was, was pretty easy for me.

But it was a lot of work.