Longtime sports talkshow host Colin Cowherd is making headlines for something he said to Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham on his very own podcast.
The WNBA’s Indiana Fever is easily the most popular team in the league. It might even be the most popular team in all of women’s sports. Everyone loves Caitlin Clark, and fans have really gotten to know one of her teammates, Sophie Cunningham, ever since she started standing up for her teammate when no one else will.
She’s become known as the team’s enforcer thanks to plays like this:
Plays like that have helped Cunningham become a household name.
It’s also helped to grow her own brand. She’s got millions of followers on social media, and the WNBA player even has her own podcast. And recently, she was a guest on Colin Cowherd’s podcast – creatively named The Colin Cowherd Podcast. It was in a recent conversation between the Fox Sports host and the WNBA player where Cowherd hesitated to provide this… we’ll just call it a take:
“You are viewed a little bit, and I don’t know any other term, as the league’s… sex symbol.”
Cowherd only said that last part after Cunningham said he could go ahead with what he was thinking.
Fortunately, Cunningham took that as a compliment, and happily responded with this, presumably because she probably thought Cowherd was going to take the conversation in a direction that explored her role in the WNBA’s controversy surrounding biological men potentially playing in their league:
“Hey, that is way better. I thought you were gonna go completely different with this, so I’ll take it.”
Cowherd then went on to support his “sex symbol” observation. Did it come off as a little weird? You bet it did. Did he even admit it could be semi-offensive? Yep. But he still went through with it, and straight up asked Sophie Cunningham how she felt about what he had said:
“You lean into it a little bit. You are tough. You’ll fight anybody. You’ll taunt anybody. But you’ll make sure you’re coming into the arena like, ‘I look good, and I want you to know I look good,’ and I don’t know if that’s semi-offensive. But how do you view that?”
Way to really stick the landing there, Colin.
Again, Cowherd was very fortunate that Cunningham wasn’t bothered by it. She admitted that she’s always taken pride in being “girly,” and loved that she could play two roles as a professional athlete:
“It’s not (offensive) for me. The reason why I really lean into that is, first of all, I have always been super girly. Since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved to dress up. I love dresses. I love high heels. I love all of that. You can be girly and you can go out and kick someone’s a**. I love that combination.”
That’s some real, hard-hitting journalism right there.
As you might imagine, social media users that have watched the clip from Cowherd’s podcast – which it evidently clipped itself – have had some reactions that range from “Well that’s kind of creepy” to “Why would he say that?”
Here’s just a few of them:
freaky ahh old man😂😂😂💀
— US1 (@DCFieldGeneral) September 11, 2026
Colin cowherd you a shameless mf man😭😭😭
— Philondelphia (@LabronPhilly) September 11, 2026
Even if she was okay with it, Very strange thing to say
— Tyrone Harper (@TyHarper03) September 11, 2026
Him pretending he didn’t wanna say what he said .. when he absolutely wanted to say it 😭😭😂😂 pic.twitter.com/NvOt6gobO5
— S Λ M (@ehimgood_) September 11, 2026
Sure Colin is horrible at his job, sports analysis, but he’s also a creep
— Luka Duka (@lucas561) September 11, 2026
