WNBA Leaders Say Officiating Changes Are Working Amid Uptick in Fouls

The WNBA opened its 30th season with some big games and an even bigger conversation about refereeing. League officiating leadership say this is a necessary adjustment period as the WNBA cleans up excessive physicality.

In a joint interview with Sports Illustrated on Thursday, WNBA head of league operations Bethany Donaphin, NBA senior vice president and head of referee development and training Monty McCutchen and WNBA head of referee development and performance Sue Blauch said they’re pleased with the new officiating task force and believe the league is heading in the right direction.

“To think that we’ve had a game as tough and rough as it was over the last four years, to clean that up, there wouldn’t be an adjustment period—I think we all expected that,” says McCutchen, who oversees refereeing across the NBA, WNBA and G-League. “The fact that we’ll get some feedback publicly, as well as privately, is not a surprise to me, nor do I begrudge anyone [giving] that feedback. It’ll only help us tighten the reins up a little quicker and get us to where we hope we can be.”

As the WNBA experienced record growth over the last few years, there was also growing focus on the quality and consistency of refereeing, which boiled over with several high-profile complaints and injuries in 2025. League commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced last October that a committee would discuss potential changes during the offseason. (There were ultimately two groups that covered the subject—a larger “state of the game” council and a smaller officiating task force.) It led to new standards for 2026.

The biggest change is an emphasis on player freedom of movement. Applied broadly—on the perimeter and in the paint, on both offense and defense, on the ball and off the ball—it was meant to cut down on physicality and get the game flowing more freely. The change led to an uptick in foul calls as games were called more tightly.

Several players and coaches aired their frustrations. “There’s calls that are being called that are unnecessary on both sides, and then there’s no flow,” Liberty forward and former MVP Breanna Stewart said. The immediate change was striking: An average of 17 whistles per team per game last season became 22 in the first weekend of this season. But that number began to dip slightly as teams played their second games and began making adjustments.

“It would be pretty miraculous to clean up the things we’re trying to clean up, that have been happening over the last several years, in a matter of days,” Donaphin says. “We recognize that it’s not without some challenges… We just have to live that for a little bit and trust that we have the right people at the table and the right talent to get to where we need to be.”

They acknowledged the adjustment period will go for referees as well as players.

“I think, in some instances, we will be over-calibrated,” McCutchen says. “That’s Sue’s and my job to say—not that one, not that one, yes to that one we want to clean up, not that one. And we’re going to be in that process for the first several weeks, if not month, of the season.”

He says that he does not expect those calibrations to be anything substantial.

“Generally, we have the game back where we wanted it,” McCutchen says. “Which is to reward freedom of movement, quickness and yes, when appropriate, to be able to hold your ground with strength, but not create new ground.”

Discussions are meant to be ongoing. The eight-person officiating task force will continue to meet over the course of the year. (There is no set calendar for those meetings yet, McCutchen says, but he notes they “want to be very nimble.”) The fact that past seasons did not always have that communication between WNBA coaches and refereeing leadership was part of the problem. He hopes that more dialogue will help.

“It’s so we don’t let this get too far down the pathway, which I think to some degree, is what happened,” McCutchen says. “We didn’t meet as often with our stakeholders, and it just started to drift away, and we found ourselves with a game that was too rough. And now we’re living with the process of cleaning that up.”

That process included league staffers visiting each team for clinics on the new points of education. “There aren’t new rules,” says Blauch, who helped lead the clinics. “We’re just simply enforcing our current guidelines more more strictly and more consistently.” There are structural aspects of that enforcement, too.

When Blauch was hired into her current role in 2018, she did not have anyone under her working specifically on referee development. The league created its first staff position there in 2023. It added one more last week. (Both are held by former officials—Kurt Walker and Eric Brewton—who now have the job title of WNBA referee performance and development advisor.) The belief is that more resources dedicated to referee development and communication will mean better refereeing across the WNBA.

“That’s going to go a long way for making quick adjustments as we need to calibrate, as we go on here these next few weeks, especially,” Blauch says.

One structural aspect that will not be changing? The replay review format. The WNBA does not have an off-site replay center to review calls like the NBA. While that is “certainly something we’re taking a look at, big-picture,” Donaphin says, it’s not something that will happen this season.

More WNBA from Sports Illustrated

Add us as a preferred source on Google