Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy ripped Enes Kanter Freedom after the former NBA player&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/enes-kanter-freedom-reveals-what-led-to-wnba-courtside-confrontation?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=Sports&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Enes+Kanter+Freedom+Reveals+What+Led+To+WNBA+Courtside+Confrontation">courtside clash</a> with Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud on Sunday night.
Portnoy said that while he agrees with Freedom&#8217;s stance on keeping men out of women&#8217;s sports, he argued that Freedom is &#8220;making this issue about him.&#8221; Freedom and Cloud engaged in a viral confrontation late in the third quarter of the game between the Sky and the Fever, and Freedom was ejected from the arena.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think boys should be allowed to play in girls sports. I also think Enes Kanter is an absolute clown for making this issue about him,&#8221; Portnoy <a href="https://x.com/stoolpresidente/status/2091696406863974812">wrote</a> on X.
The famed sports commentator argued that Freedom&#8217;s action took the spotlight off of women playing in Sunday night&#8217;s game as Freedom&#8217;s fiery confrontation drew attention away from Fever star Caitlin Clark&#8217;s dominant performance of 37 points and 10 assists.
&#8220;We should be talking about how Caitlin had another double double 37 and 10,&#8221; Portnoy added.
Some social media users, however, pointed out that very few people would have paid attention to the Fever&#8217;s game against the Sky if the clash between Freedom and Cloud hadn&#8217;t taken place.
&#8220;Except not even the WNBA wants to talk about Clark having a double double 37 and 10. That&#8217;s what led to all of this in the first place,&#8221; conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller wrote. &#8220;Portnoy isn&#8217;t wrong, but it&#8217;s the WNBA that caused all of this.&#8221;
Conservative activist Billboard Chris slammed Portnoy, arguing that Freedom is &#8220;defending women and girls from the cult of trans in the most effective way he possibly can.&#8221;
&#8220;I have never cared about a double double in the WNBA and I never will, like 99% of men,&#8221; he added. &#8220;But I care about this. Those women should all thank him for improving their ratings and their future paychecks.&#8221;
Freedom sat courtside at the game to support Cunningham, wearing a shirt that stated the definition of a woman as “adult human female.” He claimed that Cloud began shouting at him shortly after he celebrated a three-pointer made by Cunningham.
“Sophie Cunningham shot a three, and I put my hands up to celebrate. Literally, a couple possessions later, Natasha came back and started screaming and yelling and said, ‘She’s not gonna sleep with you.’” Kanter told OutKick. “And I was like, ‘I am not trying to sleep with her. I’m just here to protect women and support her.’ And then, obviously, after that she started yapping, and she started to walk towards me, and literally I just got up, and then I was like, ‘I’m just here to protect women, and that’s all.’”
Portnoy has been one of the WNBA&#8217;s biggest critics, regularly ripping the league&#8217;s inexplicable bias against Clark. He also defended Fever guard Sophie Cunningham after she was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-player-clocks-sophie-cunningham-then-complains-about-white-privilege-after-ejection">leveled</a> by Sky player DiJonai Carrington during a game earlier this month. Cunningham has become the center of attention in the WNBA following her comments on keeping men out of women&#8217;s sports last month. But Freedom&#8217;s response to the WNBA, including his declaration for the WNBA draft, is not helping solve issues in the league, according to Portnoy.
Freedom played his final years for the Boston Celtics, Portnoy&#8217;s favorite team, and in 2019, Portnoy said he was excited for the 6-foot-10 center to join the Celtics.
&#8220;I love Kanter. I love this new look Celtics team. Back to guys with heart who want to be here and win,&#8221; Portnoy <a href="https://x.com/stoolpresidente/status/1145758476012048384">said</a> after Freedom signed with Boston.

Portnoy Enes

Dave Portnoy Calls Enes Kanter Freedom An ‘Absolute Clown’ After WNBA Courtside Clash

caitlin clark

dave portnoy

enes kanter freedom

natasha cloud

sports

wnba

The Atlanta Dream remained inside the locker room during the national anthem before their matchup against the Indiana Fever on Sunday night. The unpatriotic moment gained some traction online — but the diss to the flag was nothing new for the embattled league.
A video shows Fever players on the court for the anthem, while the Atlanta team is noticeably missing from the court. League standout Sophie Cunningham appeared to be the only player on Sunday to have her hand over her heart as the anthem played. Beloved guard Caitlin Clark stood beside Cunningham with her hands behind her back.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1159941" style="width: 954px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1159941" class="wp-image-1159941 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2279135741-944x576.jpg" alt="Sophie Cunningham #8 of the Indiana Fever stands for the national anthem before their game against the Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center on May 28, 2026 in San Francisco, California. " width="944" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2279135741-944x576.jpg 944w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2279135741-300x183.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2279135741-768x469.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2279135741.jpg 970w" sizes=" (max-width: 944px) 100vw, 944px" />Ezra Shaw/Getty Images</div>
Over the past decade, players and entire teams have amped up their social justice activism, often targeting the anthem. The women on the Dream, which went on to lose to Indiana in overtime Sunday night, routinely stay in the locker room while the anthem plays.
And they&#8217;re not the only team to do so. The Connecticut Sun, for example, have also been staying off the court during the playing of the national anthem this season. During a July game, rookie Raegan Beers gained support online when she was the only Sun player who remained on the court while the anthem played, standing alone as her teammates headed toward the locker room.
The New York Liberty have also made it a habit to leave the court during the playing of the national anthem, and then return right after. Fans online have commented on the practice. One person <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wnba/comments/1twz9ki/national_anthem_protocols/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">posted</a>, &#8220;I&#8217;m a Liberty [season ticket holder] and one thing I&#8217;ve always noticed is that the teams always leave the court during the U.S. anthem and come back immediately after. I&#8217;d never seen that happen in any previous sporting events Id attended, so I clocked it as interesting.&#8221; The person added that it seemed like the practice was the &#8220;WNBA way,&#8221; but then noticed some teams do stay on the court and stand for the anthem.
The practice has a history in the league, including highly publicized instances involving the Los Angeles Sparks in 2017 and the Seattle Storm and Liberty in 2020. In 2017, the Sparks stayed in the locker room during the national anthem before several WNBA Finals games, while the Storm and Liberty walked off the court before the anthem during the 2020 season opener.
Meanwhile, the league is catching heat for refusing to stand up for girls and women on the transgender issue. The league notably allows pro-trans activism from players, while it quickly distanced itself from Cunningham after she famously said males should not be allowed in female sports.
Cunningham called her position &#8220;common sense&#8221; and fair, a position that has received overwhelming public support. However, the WNBA has yet to come on board.

2014 WNBA Finals – Game Two

WNBA Teams Have An Unpatriotic Tradition During The National Anthem

national anthem

sophie cunningham

transgender in sports

The WNBA player responsible for smacking Sophie Cunningham in the face over the weekend has a long track record of being a cheap-shot artist throughout her time in the league.
After committing a flagrant two foul against the Indiana Fever guard in Saturday’s matchup, fans began to compile evidence of Chicago Sky guard DiJonai Carrington delivering overtly aggressive hits throughout her six years in the WNBA.
Carrington’s hostile behavior is on full display in the video compilation, created by fans, that circulated on social media. The repeat offender is shown pulling hair, shoving, and slapping her opponents — moves that appear to be unnecessary — during her time with the Sky, Connecticut Sun, Dallas Wings, and Minnesota Lynx.
The video even shows Carrington going at Cunningham’s superstar teammate Caitlin Clark by scratching her eye — and, in another clip, mocking Clark after a brief confrontation ended with a foul called on Carrington.
The Sky guard was ejected from Saturday&#8217;s game after officials upgraded the call from a flagrant one to a flagrant two following the replay, resulting in a $1,000 fine and removal from the game. This marks Carrington’s sixth flagrant violation in the last three seasons despite a number of additional scenarios that appear to have deserved the call.
After the game, Cunningham addressed Carrington&#8217;s ejection and the seemingly deliberate foul against her.
“Clearly, I think it was unnecessary. I’ve never really spoken to her and have no beef with her, but I guess she has some pent-up stuff,” she <a href="https://x.com/kareemcopeland/status/2086220659319771185">said</a>. “Yeah, it’s intentional … She has no reason to be doing any of that … But I do think when people play the Fever, we&#8217;re nationally televised, there’s a lot of eyes on us and people just want attention. And that’s her just trying to get attention.”
Carrington responded to her ouster from the game in a locker-room <a href="https://www.threads.com/@dijonai/post/DbyqmQXj8Uk?xmt=AQG0YVN3u_3ZZ1dQLvLA4rwZGtUNzVlW6DPBP_HhLlEzxw">post</a> claiming that the ejection was the result of “white privilege” — and then shared the date of the team’s next head-to-head matchup on <a href="https://x.com/dijonaivictoria/status/2086192323977752742?s=46">X</a> with a smiling face emoji, suggesting that there might be more drama in the days to come.
At the time of publication, the WNBA had not announced any potential suspension for Carrington’s extreme behavior or multiple social media posts. The league is actively reviewing her posts as part of its guidelines.

Indiana Fever v Chicago Sky

WATCH: Black Player Who Clocked Sophie Cunningham Has History Of Violent Behavior

dijonai carrington

indiana fever

The WNBA is one of those science experiments where, every time I return to it, it’s somehow grown larger and more unwieldy. I write about this league, exit to describe other topics, then come back to discover that women’s pro basketball has somehow claimed an even larger share of the modern controversy zeitgeist. Now we’ve got Donald Trump talking about how, if he coached a WNBA team, <a href="https://x.com/brickcenter_/status/2084820454028747098?s=46&amp;t=oGFkfjOaJhGL-HV3dqLoGQ">he’d recruit LeBron James to womanhood</a>.
He’s not the first to make that joke. An old Dave Chappelle bit is circulating where the famous comedian imagines that a transitioned LeBron would average “<a href="https://x.com/redvoicenews/status/1647225980887646213?s=20">840 points per game</a>.” Conservative media is <a href="https://x.com/foxnews/status/2084755608889413901?s=46&amp;t=oGFkfjOaJhGL-HV3dqLoGQ">floating the possibility of a WNBA invite for a buff French transitioner named Julie Tétart</a>, who’s averaging 21 points and 20 rebounds in a second-division French women’s league. There are now regular trans sports protests and counter-protests at Indiana Fever games. What the hell is happening and can anyone be reasonable about it? Well, a man can try…
This all started with <a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/the-curious-maga-kabuki-celebrity?r=3rgcb&amp;utm_medium=ios&amp;triedRedirect=true">red-coded</a> Fever sharpshooter Sophie Cunningham giving one political opinion in an <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/49306657/sophie-cunningham-finger-point-indiana-fever-wnba">ESPN profile</a> on her burgeoning fame:
<blockquote>
I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.
</blockquote>
That’s a reasonable take that the vast majority of America agrees with. It shouldn’t theoretically be controversial, but “controversy” isn’t necessarily related to how popular a public figure’s statement is. There are other factors, such as how loud and disproportionately concentrated in media your detractors happen to be.
The noise might have died down but for a sparsely-attended “save women’s sports” protest at a Fever game in Seattle that led to Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton cursing at two teen girl protesters who sat courtside with pro-Sophie signs. Images of poor behavior from Keaton and other “pro-trans” fans in Seattle galvanized the non-Left on this issue, which further charged a thermostatic reaction on the Left. Cunningham stuck to her guns, posing for photos after a game in Minneapolis with conservative activist Riley Gaines and XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey. On Wednesday, in the aftermath of so much hubbub, Sophie expressed a desire for media to return to basketball commentary:
<blockquote>
The WNBA media, all we ever do is cover everything except basketball &#8230; You can talk about other things, those are great stories, it shows fans who people outside of the court, but I think we gotta keep the main thing the main thing.
</blockquote>
On the Left, she’s being assailed for hypocrisy after her words spawned this situation. The counter would be that she expressed one fairly normal opinion when asked about her views and it’s not necessarily Cunningham’s fault that a bunch of other people act insanely in response.
Speaking of hypocrisy allegations, a few prominent conservative activists bashed Fever superstar Caitlin Clark for ducking this topic in a press conference. That led to many on the Left proclaiming that the Right had moved from a “shut up and dribble” response on athlete activism to a position of “agree with us or we’ll attack you.” Here are statements on Clark from Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly.
<a href="https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/2084310561190265043">Walsh</a>:
<blockquote>
Caitlin Clark might be the biggest coward in the history of sports. She refuses to say anything about the anti-white racism she has been subjected to since coming into the league. She punts on the trans question, which is the easiest question you could ever be asked. No spine.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://x.com/megynkelly/status/2084283918702841939">Kelly</a>, more succinctly:
<blockquote>
Coward.
</blockquote>
Personally, I think suggesting that Caitlin Clark might be “the biggest coward in the history of sports” is juuuuust a little hyperbolic. I also flat out don’t like it. Even if I largely agree with “the Right” on this issue of males in women’s sports, I’m just constitutionally against the idea that athletes must pontificate on political positions when prompted, like trained dogs.
I’ve observed a division within the Right on how to prosecute its cultural preferences. In Prestige Media World, “the Right” can often be viewed as a monolith. They were all “shut up and dribble” and now they’re all, “wear the anti-trans <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4bmGekgE14">ribbon</a>!” When you look at your own side, you’re aware of all its fractures, but when you look at the enemy, it’s often perceived as totally united. But anyone closely observing the Right of late can tell it’s a completely insane circular YouTube firing squad of warring influencers one-upping each other for engagement. There is no unified position on Caitlin Clark and the WNBA. There is no unified position on much of anything.
Some on the broader Right believe in more of a “live and let live approach,” where conservatives appeal to a “silent majority” that’s sick of the Left’s media-backed nagging. You can see that element when Trump-voting <a href="https://x.com/stoolpresidente/status/2084342199139910075?s=46&amp;t=oGFkfjOaJhGL-HV3dqLoGQ">Dave Portnoy attacks the anti-Clark conservatives</a>. Others in the more “movement conservative” category of the Right view the Left’s tactic of applying social pressure to celebrities with ambitious envy. What if we were the bullies? What if we had celebrities cowed and kneeling in favor of our beliefs?!
I see a similar dynamic on the Left where many blue-influencers have adopted Trump’s cartoonish meanness under the assumption that it’s his value proposition. We’ve been too nice and that’s why we lose! Look at him, he gets away with everything, the lesson is that you must constantly insult and belittle!
It’s all so tiresome.
I’ll get back to the actual political issue, but one more observation about the Right and the WNBA. There is an irony of conservative commentators adopting a position that protects women’s sports as a category while simultaneously trashing the most talked about women’s sports league. It’s partially related to how, in the Right’s media ecosystem, many have absorbed a cartoonish view of what the WNBA is.
Since it goes viral every time Caitlin Clark gets whacked without a call, there’s a running assumption in certain quarters that she’s just beaten with lead pipes every night as the referees cheer it on. Some are under the impression that a white WNBA star is some detested rarity even though six such players were featured in the last All-Star game. Here’s an <a href="https://x.com/seanmdav/status/2084074286776803774">unhinged post</a> from Federalist founder Sean Davis.
<blockquote>
The WNBA is welfare for retarded black lesbians funded by the NBA. Anyone who doesn’t fit that bill — Caitlin Clark or Sophia Cunningham, for example — will be targeted and terrorized until they can no longer play. White girls are not allowed to be better at basketball than the retarded black lesbians. It does not matter how much money Clark and Cunningham make for the league. The league does not care. Because it is run by race-obsessed woke retards. Boycotting will change nothing, because the league doesn’t make money. It gets welfare from the NBA. You cannot punish something that exists to lose money by making it lose money. The NBA, not the WNBA, is responsible for the continued racial violence targeted at Clark and Cunningham, because the WNBA exists at the mercy of the NBA. So if you’re tired of anti-white racial violence from retarded black lesbians, you need to take that out on the NBA.
</blockquote>
I don’t want to get derailed on other topics, but this post reflects a vice-signaling issue on the Right that’s gained momentum ever since Twitter was sold to Elon Musk. No, you don’t need to say “retarded” four times in one paragraph to make your crazy point about how people must boycott the NBA as some bankshot against the WNBA.
On the softer side of the Right slighting women’s basketball, Clay Travis is <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/clay-travis-offers-to-pay-wnba-champions-10-million-if-they-can-beat-a-boys-high-school-basketball-team/">offering $10 million to a WNBA championship squad</a> that beats a high school state boy’s championship team. If you know the sport, or perhaps just understand basic biology, you understand that the boy’s team would easily beat the women’s team. The male physiological advantage is especially pronounced in a game where height is the most significant selection pressure. Clay is also, for comedic effect, floating the idea of trans-inclusive WNBA team named “<a href="https://x.com/ClayTravis/status/2084323804642181317">The Balls</a>” in his native Nashville. Obviously he’s expressing an <a href="https://x.com/ClayTravis/status/2084782956577464570">interest in muscled up Julie Tétart</a>:
<blockquote>
This b*tch can ball. I can’t believe the transphobic <a href="https://x.com/WNBA">[WNBA]</a> won’t sign this woman.
</blockquote>
This has resulted in a lot of people asking me whether a male can actually be admitted to a women’s league that doesn’t overtly proclaim to ban males. And the answer is … I don’t know? When asking sources involved in WNBA ownership, everyone is under the presumption that such a thing can’t happen, but there’s no formal mechanism by which to obviously prevent it. The WNBA CBA rule is “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but “women” is undefined. I’d hazard that WNBA teams would be restricted from adding a Julie Tétart type by an <a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/i-think-adam-silver-quietly-changed">Adam Silver phone call</a> as opposed to, say, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7457793/2026/07/20/womens-tennis-wta-gene-testing/">a cheek swab</a>.
What Clay Travis is getting at, whatever one thinks of him, is that many on the Left, including prominent voices like Minnesota Lynx coach <a href="https://www.aol.com/articles/sophie-cunningham-reveals-she-discussed-181521000.html">Cheryl Reeve</a>, are bluffing. They’re so dug in on “transwomen are women” that they won’t admit to obvious differences between the sexes. They’re adopting a position of rejecting a guardrail because really, there’s no issue here and it’s all made up. There’s no need to accept what’s so because the Right is being mean and transphobic and it’s a distraction and there are bigger problems etc. And there are bigger problems, certainly, but this one isn’t magically going away because you sneered loud enough at the people raising it.
One trendy Lefty idea is that there’s no need for a rule against a Julie Tétart because this lone example plays in a lesser French division, thus proving that no transwomen would ever dominate the highest tier of women’s basketball. But of course, as we saw with Lia Thomas, absent a barrier, someone will cross that threshold and instantly crush while becoming famous.
A clip of The Athletic’s <a href="https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/2085089711601623059/video/1?s=46">Sports Gossip Show</a> went viral on the Right in part because hosts Madeline Hill and Charlotte Wilder conveyed aforementioned forms of denial. According to them, “It’s pretty clear that Sophie Cunningham is doing a blatant Right-wing grift.” It’s only getting purchase because the Right are “genius marketers.” There’s an obnoxious form of argumentation on the Left that presumes it’s like, illegitimate to disagree with them. Cunningham can’t actually believe what she believes. It’s fake, somehow. And the topic isn’t worthy of consideration because it’s all a “grift.”
By the way, the divided Right aren’t “genius marketers.” They just happen to have a massive advantage on an issue you won’t deprive them of. So of course the Right is raising this topic. No duh <a href="https://x.com/gunthereagleman/status/2085154603423687138?s=46&amp;t=oGFkfjOaJhGL-HV3dqLoGQ">JD Vance is talking about Sophie Cunningham</a>. They’d be idiots to not take advantage of you looking like idiots. The day it stops is the day you concede reality about women’s sports. It’s really that simple.
I’ll close with a modest defense of the WNBA, a league I happen to now enjoy. Yes, the best males are far better at basketball than the best females, but sports can be contextual. Many consider Floyd Mayweather Jr. to be the greatest boxer of all time, even though, in his prime, thousands of dudes could kick his ass. Why? Floyd is roughly the size of a standard high school freshman. He just happened to dominate his weight classes. Yes, the Klitschko brothers would have murdered him, but nobody really cares. The job in sports is to win within your division and “women” constitutes a division. Many on the Right now denigrate that category. Many on the Left now refuse to maintain it.
***
This is republished with permission by the author. The original can be found <a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/sane-thoughts-on-wnba-left-wing-and">here</a>.
Ethan Strauss is the creator of the Substack <a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/">House of Strauss</a>. He is a former NBA PR gopher, basketblogger, and NBA beat writer.

Indiana Fever v Portland Fire

The Sophie Cunningham-WNBA Trans War Is Sucking All The Oxygen Out Of The Room

riley gaines

transgender athletes in womens sports

Wednesday evening, I went to my first WNBA game where the Washington Mystics played against the Dallas Wings, right here in my own backyard. I walked in a skeptic. I walked out something closer to a convert.
If the league&#8217;s leadership would just get their long johns out of a twist and quit politicizing a game that doesn&#8217;t need it, the WNBA could be a real international sensation, not just a niche one.
With seven minutes left in the third quarter, the home team Mystics were down by 20, and the game looked every bit like a blowout in progress. Then something clicked: maybe it was the crowd&#8217;s noise, the team&#8217;s four-game winning streak, or just spite. Cotie McMahon started finding the hoop like she owned the place, capping the comeback with a clutch three-point play that flipped the game on its head. Washington won.
It was electric. The crowd, heavy on women and short haircuts, was loud and locked in. The arena holds a modest 4,200 seats, and nearly every one of them was full. It was intimate and homey and felt like I was transported back to my days broadcasting Ohio State women&#8217;s basketball. It was athletic theater with the potential to be great.
That is, if the WNBA would stop shooting itself in the hightop.
This isn&#8217;t the league&#8217;s first rodeo with the national spotlight. Back then it handled the attention differently. When WNBA star Brittney Griner was convicted in Russia on drug charges in 2022 and came home in a prisoner swap for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, the league was quick to fumble the situation: an ESPN/Disney documentary, a Robin Roberts sit-down, a clothing capsule, a memoir. A player got caught with weed in a country where weed is illegal, and the WNBA turned it into a multi-platform victory lap.
Compare that to how it&#8217;s handling Caitlin Clark, a generational talent who&#8217;s been on the receiving end of ferocious fouls seemingly aimed more at her body than the ball, and Sophie Cunningham, the spunky, self-appointed protector who has taken to defending Clark and, more broadly, defending all &#8216;biological girls&#8217; in sports — loudly and proudly. As you can imagine, she was not offered an ESPN/Disney deal for speaking out against dudes in female sports.
Instead of capitalizing on the two most talked-about players the league has ever had, the WNBA has sidelined them and alienated the very audience that is finally paying attention.
When Cunningham doubled down on keeping biological men out of Women&#8217;s National Basketball Association locker rooms (because that is, after all, what the W stands for), Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton took it upon herself to publicly berate two teenage girls holding up signs in support of Cunningham at a game last week. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who has previously complained about the league having too many male coaches, wore a &#8220;Trans Kids Belong&#8221; shirt on the sideline. Cunningham and Clark&#8217;s own coach, Stephanie White, offered the toothless line that she doesn&#8217;t believe that &#8220;exclusion is the answer.&#8221; Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase chimed in with an equally pathetic platitude.
Stranger still, the players themselves seem to be piling on, delivering their objections through elbows and forearms rather than words. The refs, for their part, keep calling the fouls on Cunningham, presumably because her face keeps getting in the way of everyone else&#8217;s arms. All this while she&#8217;s trying to protect their league from biological men like Julie Tétart, the French unit who competes in France’s Ligue Féminine 2 and averages 21 points a game there.
You can bet if I saw that burly, mammoth frame barrelling down the court at me, I’d cry.
These women are dismantling the sport that Title IX and the generations of women before these players fought to create. What&#8217;s the point of a women&#8217;s league if men can play in it? At that rate, just merge the WNBA and NBA and let the best man win. Literally.
I think about the little girls at that game, watching women who made it past high school ball, past college, all the way to the top of what a professional female athlete can become. That&#8217;s supposed to be something to strive for — not something men can simply walk in and corrupt by claiming gender confusion.
Women&#8217;s tennis, at least, has kept its balls at bay and its head on straight. After the WTA rolled out sex-screening to &#8220;preserve the integrity of women&#8217;s professional tennis,&#8221; world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka closed her press conference by saying, resolutely, that men don&#8217;t belong in women&#8217;s sports. It really is that simple. Not one of these women would be standing where she is today if men had been allowed into the pool of play.
In 2026, the WNBA&#8217;s new media rights deal jumped to $281 million a year, over six times its previous haul, and franchise values are up 59% in a single season. Money talks, and it’s trying to tell us that this league is on the verge of a real cultural moment, if it would just get out of its own way. Imagine what happens to those numbers, and to player salaries, if the WNBA actually let Clark and Cunningham be the show instead of the scandal.
Fans want talent, spunk, and someone to root for. They&#8217;ve got that in Clark and Cunningham, a pairing with the commercial upside of a young Serena Williams, who didn&#8217;t just win 23 Grand Slams — she dragged an entire sport into the mainstream behind her.
Wednesday night felt youthful and electric, the kind of night that could stay with you a while — like a hometown high school championship, where fans treated each other like neighbors and old rivalries came roaring back. Moms and dads held up handmade signs. Kids reached for t-shirts flying out of cannons. Strangers high-fived after every clutch free throw. It was sweet, and I could actually see myself bringing a little Chloe one day.
Unless, of course, her coach is wearing a &#8220;Trans Kids Belong&#8221; shirt. Unless I&#8217;m watching 300-pound loony birds hold up signs expressing their sheer disdain for the Lethal Weapon pair. Unless I&#8217;m dodging trans flags waving in celebration of a policy that would gut the whole point of the league. But the Mystics did a good job of keeping it classy. They kept it about the game.
Usher in more of that, usher in pride for the women who make this sport possible, usher in support for the patriotic players who make it worth watching, and I&#8217;ll keep coming back. My guess is plenty of other Americans would too.

Indiana Fever v Washington Mystics

The WNBA Is A League Shooting Itself In The Hightop

transgender athletes in women's sports

women's sports

The WNBA has a new punching bag — Sophie Cunningham. The Indiana Fever star had the temerity <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/49306657/sophie-cunningham-finger-point-indiana-fever-wnba">to suggest</a> that locker rooms for girls be restricted to girls. For that statement, she’s been labeled a transphobe and, for good measure, <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/her-whiteness-sells-sophie-cunningham-004719034.html">a racist</a>. When she recently took an elbow to the face while defending Nia Coffey of the Minnesota Lynx, she was called for the foul.
Now Caitlin Clark, the original punching bag and Cunningham’s teammate, is being called <a href="https://x.com/megynkelly/status/2084283918702841939">a coward</a> by Megyn Kelly for sidestepping a question about Cunningham’s statements. Instead of wading into the issue, Clark responded with “it&#8217;s for the leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions.” And while she’s taking some other shots online for dodging the question, Clark did absolutely nothing wrong here.
As Dave Portnoy, speaking with his normal measured and reserved style, <a href="https://x.com/stoolpresidente/status/2084342199139910075">said of the &#8220;coward&#8221; take</a>: “Absolute moron/idiot to call Caitlin a coward for this answer. 1st of all you don’t even know how she feels on this issue and more importantly she doesn’t owe it to you or anybody else to be your political talking point. She just wants to play ball. Total coward cheap shot to call her a coward for not being your puppet.”
This is exactly right. If Cunningham wants to speak out, she can. If Clark doesn’t want to comment on Cunningham, she’s equally free. For starters, as Portnoy noted, they’re basketball players. Second, nothing either of them says is really going to move the needle. Politics may be downstream of culture, but we’re talking about the WNBA. Even as it’s <a href="https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/07/27/wnba-tv-audience-up-12-in-year-1-of-new-rights-deal-with-caitlin-clark-still-a-big-draw/">more popular now</a> than it’s ever been, largely thanks to Clark, it’s still not that popular.
Sorry, but that’s the cold truth. NBA games average 1.78 million viewers and Kamala Harris lost even with Steph Curry’s endorsement. With the WNBA up to an average of 742,000 viewers per game, the reach just isn’t there. It’s not just about popularity, though. Nor is it about “shut up and play.” It’s not even <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29130478/michael-jordan-stands-firm-republicans-buy-sneakers-too-quote-says-was-made-jest">Michael Jordan’s</a> “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
It’s that the players themselves are free, or at least should be, to discuss whatever they want. It’s also that we shouldn’t expect everything to be all politics, all the time. It’s unhealthy. One’s convictions shouldn’t be tied to what celebrities and pro athletes believe. If you need Caitlin Clark to validate your positions, that’s a you problem, not a Clark problem.
Similarly, it’s fine to praise Cunningham for taking a principled and correct stand. It’s already an issue that roughly 85% of the population agrees with, though. It’s not the most popular position in the WNBA — Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve wore a “Trans Kids Belong” T-shirt when the team played the Fever — so Cunningham deserves some credit for speaking up. Yet, doing so doesn’t exactly make her a hero.
Cunningham and Clark play games to distract and entertain people. Their decisions and opinions do not affect the wide world outside of sports. They don’t owe anyone other than their owners and teammates anything. To paraphrase Portnoy, they aren’t anyone’s puppets.
Also, as another basketball star once said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2lseCPPCP4">a Nike commercial</a>, “I am not a role model &#8230; just because I dunk a basketball doesn&#8217;t mean I should raise your kids.” WNBA stars may not be great at dunking, but we still shouldn’t expect them to raise our kids, even if Cunningham’s offense was focused on protecting them. That’s a job for parents. They are the ones who can choose not to drive their kids to the locker rooms that Cunningham was discussing. And they are free to make that choice regardless of what any WNBA player says or does not say.
***
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin&#8217; Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cookin-up-a-story/id1624969096">here</a>. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4

WNBA: JUL 22 Connecticut Sun at Indiana Fever

Sophie Cunningham Is No One’s Culture War Punching Bag

megyn kelly

Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever&#8217;s star guard and most well-known player in the WNBA, was asked Sunday to share her thoughts on men in women&#8217;s sports, a controversy that has erupted in the women&#8217;s basketball league following comments from Clark&#8217;s teammate Sophie Cunningham.
As Cunningham faces intense backlash from leftists over her comments on protecting women&#8217;s sports, Clark said the issue is not discussed in the Fever&#8217;s locker room.
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes and find solutions, but our focus is on basketball. That&#8217;s what we talk about,&#8221; Clark said during her post-game press conference.
After her short answer, a reporter asked if she had any reaction to the controversy surrounding Cunningham.
&#8220;I just answered for you,&#8221; Clark replied.
Clark was pressed on the issue one day after Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunninghams-coach-asked-where-she-stands-on-men-in-womens-sports?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=Sports&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Sophie+Cunningham%E2%80%99s+Coach+Asked+Where+She+Stands+On+Men+In+Women%E2%80%99s+Sports">pushed back</a> on Cunningham&#8217;s remarks on keeping men out of women&#8217;s sports.
“I don’t know that I would say that I’m educated enough from a scientific standpoint. I don’t ever believe that exclusion is an answer. I just don’t,” White told reporters.
Cunningham sparked discussion on the issue last month during an interview for a profile piece that was published by ESPN. In the interview, Cunningham was asked where she stands on men in women&#8217;s sports, and she addressed the matter head-on.
“I think that I am here to extend love,” she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-star-breaks-with-league-on-explosive-issue?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Star+Breaks+With+League+On+Explosive+Issue">said</a>. “But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
Her comments resulted in a wave of support from many Americans, including the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/karoline-leavitt-rips-leftist-backlash-to-sophie-cunninghams-trans-sports-comments">White House</a>, who oppose policies by schools, athletic associations, and professional leagues that allow men to compete against women. Cunningham&#8217;s comments were also met with backlash from many people on the Left, including WNBA players, coaches, and at least one team owner.
During a Fever game in Seattle last week, two young girls attended the game with XX-XY shirts and a sign supporting Cunningham and her defense of women-only sports. The young girls were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunningham-rips-wnba-team-co-owner-for-harassing-teens-girls-with-xx-xy-shirts?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Sophie+Cunningham+Rips+WNBA+Team+Co-Owner+For+Harassing+Teen+Girls+With+XX-XY+Shirts">heckled</a> by some Seattle fans and berated by Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton, who reportedly called the teenage girls &#8220;f*cking insane.&#8221; Keaton was reprimanded by the Storm and suspended from attending the team&#8217;s next five home games.
“Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon,” Cunningham said. “Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is.”
Clark is familiar with being on the receiving end of harsh backlash. Ever since she came into the league in 2024 — bringing a following of loyal fans from her success in college at Iowa — Clark has been public enemy No. 1 for many WNBA players. The WNBA&#8217;s hatred for Clark is evident even in the star player&#8217;s third season. Last month, when players placed votes for the WNBA All-Star Game, they determined Clark wasn’t even among the top 10 best guards, despite Clark putting up impressive numbers and setting league records, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/latest-stunt-shows-just-how-much-wnba-hates-star-player-caitlin-clark?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Latest+Stunt+Shows+Just+How+Much+WNBA+Hates+Star+Player+Caitlin+Clark">reported</a>.
Clark has also brought unprecedented attention to the WNBA and helped drive record-breaking attendance, viewership, and merchandise sales.

WNBA Star Caitlin Clark Responds To Trans Sports Firestorm

Nothing screams &#8220;support women&#8217;s basketball&#8221; quite like a team co-owner berating two 16-year-old girls until they cry.
That&#8217;s the state of the WNBA in 2026, folks. It&#8217;s honestly a mystery wrapped in an enigma why the sport isn&#8217;t more popular.
That&#8217;s exactly what unfolded Tuesday night during the Seattle Storm&#8217;s game against the Indiana Fever. Two teenagers wearing XX-XY Athletics shirts. This is a brand built around — and I know this is a radical concept — protecting women&#8217;s sports for actual women.The two girls were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owners-tirade-at-sophie-cunningham-fans-ends-in-fallout">told</a> they were &#8220;f*cking insane&#8221; for holding a sign that read &#8220;Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls.&#8221;
This comes amid the fervor surrounding Sophie Cunningham, the Fever guard who&#8217;s made it her personal mission to protect teammate Caitlin Clark from the maniacal manhandlers who seem more intent on trying to cause her real, serious harm than on trying to win games. And, more controversially, Cunningham says out loud that biological men shouldn&#8217;t play women&#8217;s sports.
Isn&#8217;t it a shame that this now counts as a hot take? We&#8217;ll let 10-year-olds chop off their God-given goods, no problem; but suggest that a 16-year-old girl shouldn&#8217;t have to guard a grown man in the paint, and suddenly it’s as if you screamed “bomb” on an airplane.
Naturally, the brave teens (braver than me: I wouldn’t attend a WNBA game nor willingly set foot in Seattle) had to put their signs away to protect the fragile feelings of the fruity vanguard, while the multi-colored, rainbow marxist next to them kept her neon “No Hate In These United States” sign up the entire game.
I don’t know, girly pop.
It seemed pretty hateful to me when the co-owner of the team, Celeste Keaton, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DbZou8oMQEL/?hl=en">swore at and belittled</a> the two young athletes who paid to be there, for the crime of supporting fairness in the sport she claims to have devoted her life to. Newsflash for Klass-less Keaton: If fans wanted to watch burly, powerful bundles of XY chromosomes play basketball, that league already exists. It’s called the NBA. It&#8217;s on most nights at 9 p.m.
The highly agitated and morally bankrupt co-owner has been fined and suspended for the next five home games. But to me, this actually seems more like a reward than a punishment; not having to watch the Seattle Storm night after night, but then again, I&#8217;m a straight conservative.
It also seemed pretty hateful when a grown man in a WNBA hat (interesting choice) heckled the same girls, yelling &#8220;get out&#8221; and &#8220;security, take out the trash&#8221; while they cried.
Is it possible to just carve Washington State out of America? Could we give them to Canada? The benevolent folk can apply for residency in other states, using multiple forms of ID, of course, but the rest can stay in their sad, vampire-ridden land and float off into the northern Pacific. Our military&#8217;s schedule is pretty light right now; I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;ve got time to blow a gorge across the state line.
Sure, the scenery is stunning. But so is a Renaissance painting of a plague, but you wouldn’t want to live inside it. Seattle literally ranks #1 in adults having feelings of depression. I don&#8217;t make the rules; I just read the Census data. Some things are worth losing the view for. Baby, meet bathwater.
Oh well, I’m just glad Sophie, her teammates, and those young ladies made it out alive. But they didn’t leave with their heads hung low. The Fever crushed Keaton’s Storm clouds 105-95, marking Indiana&#8217;s fourth consecutive 100-point game — a new WNBA record for the longest such streak in league history. Clark led the crusade with 32; Cunningham flipped the booing crowd the bird by shooting 3-for-3 from three in the first quarter. 
 
<a href="https://x.com/MAGAVoice/status/2070740086074102191">We see you, Sophie. We see you.</a>
And increasingly, so does the rest of the country. Her Adidas partnership has become one of the league&#8217;s bigger commercial stories this season, with her player-exclusive sneaker selling out within hours of its release. Turns out normie Americans like common sense, Title IX, and rooting for pretty blondes who don’t apologize for either.
The WNBA doesn&#8217;t have a talent problem. It has a leadership problem. When your co-owners are cursing out teenage girls for saying men shouldn&#8217;t play women&#8217;s sports, in a women&#8217;s sports league, you&#8217;ve stopped being an inclusive institution and started being an ideological one; and ideological institutions don&#8217;t grow audiences, they shed them.
Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham are giving this league its biggest audience ever. Its own ownership keeps handing that audience reasons to watch literally anything else.
Fix that, and the mystery solves itself.

WNBA: JUL 18 New York Liberty at Indiana Fever

They Came For Caitlin Clark – Will The WNBA Destroy Sophie Cunningham Next?

Celeste Keaton

DW Opinion

Seattle Storm

title ix

Let’s say you ran a sports league and you had two choices in how to market that sports league. First choice: All-American, fun, inspiring, generally normie. Second choice: militantly lesbian, trans, anti-white, and the players bet on their own games.
Which would you choose?
The NBA seems to be making its choice every single day. Yet another WNBA scandal cropped up this week, and it&#8217;s precisely what you think it is.
I am an NBA fan. My son is an even bigger NBA fan. Back in the 1970s, we probably wouldn&#8217;t have been NBA fans. Most people weren’t back in the &#8217;70s, and there were a bunch of reasons for that. The NBA was broadly perceived as a thuggish, drug-infused league. They had no national TV coverage because of that perception.
In 1977, a player for the LA Lakers named Kermit Washington nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich in the middle of a game by punching him in the face. A fan actually assaulted a referee during the 1976 NBA Finals. The ownership groups were totally mismanaged; the amount of blow and hookers wading through the NBA in the &#8217;70s was extraordinary.
The NBA was plodding. They didn&#8217;t have a three-point line. The American Basketball Association (ABA), which was its big competitor and had its own financial problems, had three-pointers and dunks. The NBA had serious problems.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2475?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
So the NBA decided to solve that problem. The Celtics drafted Larry Bird. The Lakers drafted Magic Johnson. And then the entire league was built around them. They&#8217;d been huge, high-wattage college stars; Bird was white, and Magic was black. The NBA also absorbed the ABA. Stars like Dr. J entered the NBA, and the NBA decided to change its style. They added the three-point line in 1979. By 1982, NBA games were now live, not tape-delayed, and by 1983, the NBA had decided to pursue a serious anti-drug policy to wipe out the cocaine problem.
The NBA also decided to put serious focus on policing on-and-off-court violence and behavior. They were fining players and suspending them, and the NBA mostly decided to protect its stars, which it still does, which is why a lot of people will complain that stars in the playoffs get all the calls.
This is how you build a league.
Now let&#8217;s turn to the WNBA, the subsidized little sister of the NBA. It has lost money every single year it&#8217;s been in existence. The NBA basically pays its bills.
Its quality of play? Let’s just say they ain’t dudes. There are men&#8217;s suburban over-40 basketball leagues that play better basketball than what was played in the WNBA All-Star game.
That alone would be a problem, but its brand is even worse because it has become militant lesbians who are decent at basketball by female standards, but certainly not by male standards, and are simultaneously obnoxiously insistent that the only reason people won&#8217;t watch them is racism and sexism.
That was the WNBA brand. 
And then the WNBA received the greatest gift of all time: Caitlin Clark. That’s because Caitlin Clark was breaking records in college, and her entry into the WNBA meant a spike in viewership and people actually giving a crap because she was really good.
But there is one problem for the WNBA. The league is still plagued by radical political leftism that has somehow become intertwined with the very character of the league. They let the character of the players dictate the character of the league, and so the players whine incessantly about the fact that Caitlin Clark gets attention, instead of them celebrating the fact that people are actually watching their crappy games.
They keep saying that she&#8217;s not good, or that the people who are following Caitlin Clark are only doing so because she&#8217;s white and racist.
There were people who did this throughout Larry Bird&#8217;s career. There were two differences: The league rejected it, and Bird would trash-talk the living hell out of everybody and would own you if you tried to do this.
There is a large-scale trend of Caitlin Clark getting randomly manhandled. Even that gave the WNBA an opportunity, because it turns out that Caitlin Clark&#8217;s team also has a very pretty forward named Sophie Cunningham, who is All-American in her attitude and viewpoints, and has become Caitlin Clark&#8217;s protector on the court, which led to the viral moment when another player told her not to point at her, so Cunningham proceeded to point at her for a meme-worthy 22 seconds.
Cunningham knew the cameras were on her. She knew exactly what she was doing. Smart marketing. Yet another opportunity for the WNBA, right?
Wrong. Why?
Because Sophie Cunningham has the wrong kind of politics. Last week, she said that boys aren&#8217;t girls and girls’ sports should be protected from the boys playing with them, and all hell broke loose.
This is an 80/20 issue. Most Americans don&#8217;t believe that boys should play against girls. And you&#8217;re talking about a women&#8217;s sport league.
A 14-year-old high school freshman boy starting varsity at any decent public school in America would torch these ladies. That is not sexist. That is reality.
Naturally, the WNBA top voices decided to come out in stern opposition to Sophie Cunningham. That’s because the WNBA isn&#8217;t the women&#8217;s NBA; it is the LNBA or LGBT NBA.
All of that came out into the open this week. Brandi Kruse, a journalist in Seattle whom I know from my days back on a Seattle radio station, took a bunch of girls to the Indiana Fever game in Seattle, and they were wearing XX-XY shirts. They stand against men in women&#8217;s sports.
And then an owner of the Seattle Storm, Celeste Keaton — who seems like a real charmer — showed up to scream at these teenage girls.
According to the girls, she first tried a softer approach: “I hope Jesus can forgive you for what sin you&#8217;ve done.” One girl recalled, “And then she told us that we were effing insane.” Asked whether Keaton actually said the curse word, the girl answered that she had.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Storm center, Stefanie Dolson, who is 6-foot-5 and 245 pounds — which makes her the Shaq of the WNBA, except she stinks, averaging 3.8 points and 2.6 rebounds per game with the mobility of quicksand — wore a shirt that said: “Trans rights are human rights.”
Sophie Cunningham applauded the girls. She wrote on X: “I truly believe there is a safe space and love for everybody; biological girls, biological boys, trans women and trans men. Welcome to my table! You can disagree and still be kind. Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You&#8217;ll be hearing from me soon. Yay for gifts! Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is.”
Sophie Cunningham is trying to play it as mainstream as possible. She&#8217;s even using the politically acceptable language here, which I would not recommend because it isn’t going to win her any points.
It is incredible that this was even a controversy. The WNBA eventually suspended Keaton for the next five home games and fined her.
But the lasting impression here is pretty obvious if you are traditionally conservative: If you&#8217;re rational in any way, if you are not a radical LGBT activist, you do not belong at a WNBA game.
They are actively alienating well over half of the American population.
The WNBA could be successful; after all, there are a lot of women&#8217;s sports that are: women&#8217;s tennis, women&#8217;s golf. (Not so much women’s soccer, which tends to spike around the World Cup and then fall apart for the same exact reasons, because it&#8217;s very important to be incredibly woke.)
But if you want people to watch your product, you might want to think about this: To which crowd are you trying to appeal? I have two girls, 12 and six. Do I want to bring them to a WNBA game where they are being preached to about the virtues of LGBT radicalism?
It&#8217;s enough of a burden for me to pretend that the games are actually entertaining and interesting. I would never allow these people to shovel politics into my kids’ brains.
That&#8217;s the problem for the WNBA: The league can&#8217;t separate itself from its politics.
For them to do what they actually need to do to become successful, they would need to acknowledge they&#8217;re totally out of step politically with the rest of America.
They won’t.

basketball_trash

The Dumbest Business Decision In America

Ben Shapiro

opinion

Transgender Athletes

Women Sports

Sophie Cunningham has always stuck up for her people. Her sister, her teammates, Caitlin Clark (when the entire WNBA seemed to have taken out a hit job on her), and now she’s sticking up for something even bigger: women.
The basketball star turned viral sensation just threw the girls a bone, saying in a sprawling <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/49306657/sophie-cunningham-finger-point-indiana-fever-wnba">ESPN</a> feature that she wants to “protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn&#8217;t have to go against biological men.”
There it is. Time for the WNBA to get big mad.
And of course the media will follow suit, deriding her indefinitely, like the Washington Post just did. Its latest headline reads: “WNBA player Sophie Cunningham won’t stop talking about trans athletes.”
No, my friends. You won’t stop talking about trans athletes.
She shouldn’t even have to say that &#8220;Biological men” don’t belong in a girl’s locker room. In fact, that used to be a redundant phrase, not a controversial one. But somebody had to say it aloud, because the feminists who were supposed to be saying it wandered off years ago, some chasing climate change, some chasing a different gender. So thank God for Sophie Cunningham. The 29-year old Indiana Fever guard, Missouri native, and Amazonian talent is apparently the last woman standing willing to state the obvious.
She’s not just the right messenger; she’s the perfect one.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
😂🔥 Sophie Cunningham’s latest Instagram post is captioned: “I said what I said.”
She seriously gives ZERO f’s. 🤣 <a href="https://t.co/a5QC3KgDss">pic.twitter.com/a5QC3KgDss</a>
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) <a href="https://x.com/ginamilan_/status/2080374365707763781?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This is who she’s always been. Growing up in Columbia, Missouri, Cunningham was clocking opposing players in rec-league before she hit double digits, avenging her older sister Lindsey the minute someone dared to even look at her funny. “If you let people walk all over you, they’re going to,” she says. “It’s just in my blood. You’re not gonna mess with my people.”
I like her. As an older sister, I can attest that claws don’t come out quicker than when your baby sissy gets hurt.
She carried that maternal instinct through four years at Mizzou, dragging a program that hadn’t sniffed the NCAA Tournament in nearly a decade back into it, four years running, and picked up a reputation for being seriously spunky along the way. South Carolina fans wanted her dead, literally. “Which is fine,” she said. Because like grandma, like mother, like daughter, she has thick skin.
She doesn’t care if she pisses people off.
This instinct came in handy last year when Jacy Sheldon poked Caitlin Clark in the eye, and Cunningham responded by putting Sheldon in a headlock on national television. She went viral for defending the only female WNBA player most people could name. Then did it again with a 22-second finger <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BlackIndyLIVE/videos/one-of-the-funniest-moments-in-sports-right-now-didnt-come-from-a-game-winning-s/3180318988844573/">point</a> and glare at DeWanna Bonner that turned into one of the biggest sports memes of the year.
It was glorious. The kind of silent fury I know intimately, the same look I give my sisters the second one of my tops goes missing off the hanger. No words, just accusation, thick enough to choke on. (We go from lovers to fighters real fast.)
One finger, twenty-two seconds, and an entire arena understood exactly what she meant. She never said a word. She didn&#8217;t have to. The point said it for her: touch my girl again and see what happens.
Clark has spent a season and a half getting hunted by bloodthirsty opponents while the league’s officiating crew developed a sudden case of Helen Keller the minute the star was fouled. Cunningham noticed, and Cunningham cared. So she did something about it. Now the same protective instinct that got Sheldon a headlock and Bonner a very long staredown has widened its aperture. She’s now going to bat for young girls and female athletes, and it means everything.
This woman became ubiquitous almost overnight. A woman who was a solid but unspectacular role player for six seasons in Phoenix is now an Adidas athlete with her own signature shoe dropping tomorrow, a Ring spokeswoman, a UFC ring girl, and reportedly one of the highest-earning names in the league that, until last year, most Americans couldn’t have named two players from. Her Google search numbers spiked 800% after the Sheldon situation. Her TikTok and Instagram followings are in the millions, and it happened because she was willing to be exactly, unapologetically herself in a landscape that has spent years punishing those who step out of line.
Which is what makes what she said in an ESPN profile, in the career sense, extremely dangerous. Telling the outlet that young girls in sports shouldn’t have to compete against biological men should be grounds for applause. Instead, it’s a liability.
But thankfully, she’s <a href="https://x.com/RomeovilleKid/status/2080069445364433144/video/1">doubling down. 
</a>
“I said what I said,” she told reporters before Wednesday’s game against Connecticut. “I think it&#8217;s kind of common sense. I think it&#8217;s really important to protect children, and that&#8217;s little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said.&#8221;
Bingo. Give her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Because that was brave.
Honestly, she has more to lose than almost anyone in the league right now: the shoe deal, the brand partnerships, the goodwill of a locker room culture, her spot on the team. She’s risking all of it for a sentence most Americans agree with, but almost no professional athlete will say.
The WNBA, meanwhile, has spent two years alternately ignoring and resenting the two players filling its arenas. It resents Clark for being too good and too popular. Now it gets to resent Cunningham for being too honest. Quite the business decision, icing out the only two names we know!
(It’s not personal. We didn’t know a single U.S. Men’s soccer player before the World Cup, either.)
What Sophie Cunningham is saying is correct. It should not be controversial. But women across the country are glad someone with as much to lose as she does is saying it regardless. Because for some reason, the liberal overlords and woke warriors would sacrifice safety and fairness for mental illness inclusion every time, if unchecked.
If we don&#8217;t stick up for each other, no one will. And Cunningham&#8217;s whole life has been proof that she doesn&#8217;t wait around for permission to protect her people. She didn&#8217;t wait for Sheldon. She didn&#8217;t wait for Bonner. She&#8217;s not going to wait for a press release from the league office, either.
Eat it, WNBA. Or you will go back to being just as unpopular as the World Cup before June.

Golden State Valkyries v Indiana Fever

Caitlin Clark’s Bodyguard Is Now Fighting For Us

espn

Hatred of the WNBA&#8217;s star player Caitlin Clark reached comical heights last week, when WNBA players voted Clark as the 11th best guard in the league.
When players placed votes for the WNBA All-Star Game, they determined Clark wasn&#8217;t even among the top 10 best guards, despite Clark putting up impressive numbers and setting league records. The astonishing vote marked just another anti-Clark moment, and made waves in some sports media circles.
Sports commentator Colin Cowherd, for example, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DaVwBbkJsLw/">said</a> the vote was so absurd it was &#8220;funny.&#8221; &#8220;The animosity toward Caitlin Clark — it&#8217;s so petty,&#8221; Cowherd added after rattling off impressive Clark statistics.
Though she entered the league just three seasons ago, Clark has already broken WNBA records. In her rookie season, she set the WNBA single-season assists record with 337 assists and established the WNBA single-game assists record with 19 assists in a single game. She also became the first rookie in WNBA history to record a triple-double.
Fans also love Clark. The Midwestern native has brought unprecedented attention to the WNBA and helped drive record-breaking attendance, viewership, and merchandise sales.
During her rookie season, the league recorded its highest total attendance in more than two decades, with attendance increasing 48% compared to the previous season. And according to retail sales data, Clark has surpassed NBA star LeBron James in basketball jersey sales, ranking second only to Stephen Curry.
The jealousy of Clark goes beyond just fellow players in the league. Earlier this month, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert did not include Clark on the league’s 30-year commemorative poster.
Clark&#8217;s teammate Sophie Cunningham <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DaJ1gwgvbnG/">said the omission</a> was a “joke,&#8221; adding, “You are leaving out a generational — the best player to ever go through the WNBA.”
Cunningham&#8217;s “Show Me Something” podcast co-host West Wilson said Engelbert was “jealous” of Clark. “She won’t give her the platform — it’s f*cking so weird,&#8221; he told Cunningham.
Clark is also a routine target of excessive physicality or cheap shots on the court. She faced several controversial hard fouls during her rookie season, and this year, Clark appeared to be struck in the throat by Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas while Clark was on the floor.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-star-sophie-cunningham-wont-diss-trump-after-white-house-meme">WNBA Star Sophie Cunningham Won’t Diss Trump After White House Meme</a>

GettyImages-2282441029

Latest Stunt Shows Just How Much WNBA Hates Star Player Caitlin Clark

Basketball

Fans have thrown sex toys onto the court during WNBA games on three different occasions this past week.
Most recently, Indiana Fever standout Sophie Cunningham was the first to notice a bright green device on the court when her team faced off against the Los Angeles Sparks. The incident occurred after a free throw, right before halftime.
The culprit <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6537792/2025/08/06/sophie-cunningham-sex-toy-wnba-indiana-fever/">fled the arena</a> after throwing the sex toy, according to security personnel.
Clay Travis, the founder of Outkick, commented on the trend and posted video of the latest incident on X. &#8220;A third green d**** has been thrown at a WNBA game!&#8221; he said. &#8220;This time in LA. Atlanta, Chicago and LA now. It appears the d**** may have lightly grazed Sophie Cunningham who tweeted not to hit players with the d*****. This is an all time story. This league!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A third green dildo has been thrown at a WNBA game! This time in LA. Atlanta, Chicago and LA now. It appears the dildo may have lightly grazed Sophie Cunningham who tweeted not to hit players with the dildos. This is an all time story. This league! <a href="https://t.co/zlXUGeOCFf">pic.twitter.com/zlXUGeOCFf</a>
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1952928274419527901?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
Sparks coach Lynne Roberts called the trend &#8220;ridiculous,&#8221; &#8220;dumb,&#8221; and &#8220;stupid.&#8221;
“It’s also dangerous,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6537792/2025/08/06/sophie-cunningham-sex-toy-wnba-indiana-fever/">said</a>. &#8220;Player safety is number one, respecting the game, all those things. I think it’s really stupid.”
As noted by Travis, Cunningham seemed to crack a joke about the trend earlier in the week, posting on X, &#8220;stop throwing d****s on the court… you’re going to hurt one of us.&#8221; The post received more than 36 million views.
Following the incident during the Fever/Sparks game, Cunningham noted the post &#8220;did NOT age well.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
this did NOT age well. <a href="https://t.co/K1WGbOWEjJ">https://t.co/K1WGbOWEjJ</a>
— Sophie Cunningham (@sophaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/sophaller/status/1952962130912919737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
On Tuesday, someone threw a similarly green sex toy onto the court during a Golden State Valkyries vs. Atlanta Dream game.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Someone threw a green dildo on the court during a WNBA game tonight. <a href="https://t.co/mFSESW6cfE">pic.twitter.com/mFSESW6cfE</a>
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1950383302126567831?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
The trend has been so widely commented on that people can now actually bet on the color of the next sex toy to be thrown onto the WNBA court.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
You can now bet on what color the next dildo thrown on a WNBA court will be. <a href="https://t.co/8il9I85dJi">pic.twitter.com/8il9I85dJi</a>
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1951709251904430566?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
The WNBA, though, is not finding the trend so comical, for obvious reasons. So far, at least one person has been arrested for pulling the stunt. The WNBA said in a statement that any person throwing objects onto the court will be ejected and banned from league games for one year.
“The safety and well-being of everyone in our arenas is a top priority for our league,” the statement said. “Objects of any kind thrown onto the court or in the seating area can pose a safety risk for players, game officials, and fans. In line with WNBA Arena Security Standards, any fan who intentionally throws an object onto the court will be immediately ejected and face a minimum one-year ban in addition to being subject to arrest and prosecution by local authorities.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-players-ruthlessly-mocked-for-equal-pay-t-shirts?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Players+Ruthlessly+Mocked+For+Equal+Pay+T-Shirts">WNBA Players Ruthlessly Mocked For Equal Pay T-Shirts</a>

Indiana Fever v Los Angeles Sparks

Fans Keep Throwing Sex Toys On Court During WNBA Games

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