Most Powerful Woman In Sports Doesn’t Know What Else She Can Do

Gayle Benson, recently anointed by Forbes as the most powerful woman in sports, has a message for the frustrated fans of her New Orleans Saints and Pelicans: she has no idea what more you could possibly want from her.

In a recent interview that should have been a moment of leadership, Benson instead presented a masterclass in tone-deafness. Confronted with her teams’ overwhelming struggles and a furious fanbase, the billionaire owner retreated into a posture of defeat, framing valid criticism as a personal burden she was powerless to alleviate.

This defeatist sentiment crested at the interview’s end. After listing financial investments in stadium upgrades, she concluded with an air of resignation: “I just want everyone to know that I’m doing everything that I can… I can’t do any more than I’m doing.”

For the fans, this admission serves more as an indictment than a reassurance. Because if this is truly “everything” from the most powerful woman in sports, then the teams are in far more trouble than their losing records suggest.

The “Brunt” of Her Own Teams’ Failures

The core of Benson’s victim narrative emerged when discussing fan disappointment.

“But they need to know that I’m very upset and very disappointed, probably more so than them,” she said of the fans. “Because I’m taking the brunt of this.”

Let’s be clear, the “brunt” of a losing season is not borne by the owner in her suite. It is borne by the fans who invest their money, passion, and civic pride for a non-competitive product. It’s a burden that crushes the players and coaches who see their hard work and seasons rendered futile just weeks into the schedule. It hangs over staff members in the final years of their contracts, who now wait for the axe to fall due to organizational failures beyond their control. Benson’s “brunt” is negative press and a bruised ego. For everyone else tied to these franchises, it is a tangible cost—be it financial, professional, or emotional. To claim she suffers more is a profound misunderstanding of the ecosystem she is supposed to lead.

“Every Resource” Except the Ones That Matter

Benson’s primary defense is that she has opened her checkbook. She points to $180 million for Superdome renovations and future plans for the Smoothie King Center as proof of her commitment.

While Benson may feel she is spending, the investment stops short where it matters most for competitiveness. The Pelicans are notorious for lagging behind in the “arms race” of player amenities and support staff, areas where teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder have invested heavily to create a first-class environment that attracts and retains talent. Former players who leave New Orleans often find that other organizations operate on an entirely different level of spending, from cutting-edge recovery technology to dedicated family lounges and travel accommodations.

This institutional penny-pinching reaches its peak with the Pelicans’ most infamous distinction: they are one of only two NBA teams that have never crossed the luxury tax threshold. This is not a minor detail. The luxury tax is the ultimate proof of an owner’s willingness to spend for a winner. By consistently avoiding the tax, the Pelicans signal that financial prudence is a higher priority than aggressive roster building. Letting valuable players walk, shying away from big trades, and—most damningly—repeatedly sacrificing future draft capital in desperate attempts to duck below the tax line are the direct results of this policy

So, when Benson says she’s providing “every resource,” it rings hollow. She is providing every resource except the financial ones that separate the complacent from genuine contenders.

An Insular Circle, and No More Ideas

This pattern of a limited commitment directly contradicts her stated goal. “My role is to hire the best people I can and give them the resources they need to win,” she asserted in the interview.

Yet her actions tell a different story. Her unwavering confidence in Saints GM Mickey Loomis was demonstrated by her dismissal of calls for his accountability as “ridiculous.” More telling, however, was her hire to fix the Pelicans: Joe Dumars. While Benson wants credit for empowering him, she fails to mention that Dumars, a longtime friend of her top executives Mickey Loomis and Greg Bensel, was hired without a single interview with another candidate. The most important basketball decision she could make was treated not as a competitive search for “the best people,” but as an inside job.

This is the heart of the issue. The inner circle is a “friends-and-family” plan that prioritizes comfort and loyalty over the pursuit of excellence she professes. She has created an insular structure, funded it to a point, and now as it fails, throws her hands up.

“I can’t do any more than let them know I’m supporting them,” she said, referring to players. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

And that is the most frightening admission of all. The most powerful woman in sports, who presides over two floundering franchises, is out of ideas. She doesn’t know that “more” could mean empowering her basketball team to build out a competitive operations, or that “more” could mean breaking her insular circle to find truly new leadership. Shoot, “more” could simply be lowering the ticket prices and easing the financial burden on fans!

Benson has done everything she can think of. She claims to “take the brunt” of the criticism, yet her stance suggests she believes the burden of accepting failure is for the fans to bear, not for her to fix. The title “Most Powerful” implies the ability to turn that power into wins, not excuses. The ultimate irony of Gayle Benson’s power is that she wields it everywhere except where it matters most—leaving her with a well-funded empire and losing teams.