Renee Montgomery on Her Move From WNBA Player to Owner

Renee Montgomery says she still loves Minnesota, where she won two championships, even though she later joined the Atlanta Dream; host Alex Rodriguez notes that the Lynx have not won since. Montgomery recalls that Minnesota was ahead of the league’s curve, citing the Mayo Clinic’s state-of-the-art facilities as an example of the resources players now expect. She became obsessed with the WNBA at age 10 after its 1997 launch, when players appeared on shows such as Martin and seemed like celebrities. After an initial boom, the league stagnated, but she now sees crowds, attendance, and viewership at levels she once could not imagine.

Montgomery says becoming an owner looked quick from the outside but began with a difficult decision to retire. During the 2020 COVID lockdown and protests after George Floyd’s murder, Atlanta was central to the organizing: State Farm Arena hosted voting, and protests happened daily. Montgomery felt connected to the community but could not return to basketball while being only “half in, half out.” Despite a famously disciplined athlete’s routine, she opted out because she wanted to remain in Atlanta. The decision became more consequential when then-Dream owner Kelly Loeffler opposed Black Lives Matter while running against Raphael Warnock, whom Montgomery already knew.

After retiring, Montgomery initially struggled to be taken seriously and received little traction from the Dream’s general manager. While working with More Than a Vote, she saw LeBron James tweet that the Dream needed new ownership and used it to make contact. That introduction connected her with Larry Gottesdiener and Suzanne Abair, whose group won the bid. Montgomery pitched herself as the sports expert who had lived and breathed basketball, while they brought experience running a billion-dollar company; they immediately clicked. She negotiated not mainly for money but for a C-suite role and became both co-owner and vice president.

Montgomery says the thick ownership contract was her first major shock because, unlike basketball, she was no longer the expert in the room. She read every page, as she had done with her playing contracts, and wanted authority to influence how the team treated athletes. As vice president, she could participate in day-to-day decisions rather than remain a passive owner. She also learned that players often blame teams for constraints imposed by the league: for example, even if Atlanta wanted to fly privately, the WNBA’s rules and economics could prevent it. Her management priority became improving the Dream’s culture and credibility with players.

Montgomery says the ownership group initially wanted to fix everything overnight, then realized it needed to select a few priorities each year and execute them well. The group acquired the team only 40 days before a season—its “year zero”—and watched staff grow from about 20 employees to four times that number. She describes investment as necessary to create growth, even when leaving Gateway Arena, where fans sat close to the court and the team had built a distinctive atmosphere. The Dream’s move to State Farm Arena for five years is intended to let more Atlanta fans experience the team, with president Morgan Shaw Parker helping assemble the deal.

Montgomery believes NIL reflects the economic value athletes create for universities, since successful sports programs can increase enrollment and revenue, but she calls the current system the “wild, wild west.” Her preferred solution is professional-style structure: trades, multi-year contracts, buyouts, and maximums for players and coaches. She invested in Campus because merchandise increasingly lets fans make statements about players and teams; she cold-contacted the company after seeing its UConn licensing work, with Mark Cuban also involved. For the WNBA’s next phase, she wants more capital, games on major broadcast networks rather than secondary channels, and deliberate outreach to overseas women’s-basketball fans.