I’ve said it before, but I can’t imagine a league doing more to hurt their own popularity than the WNBA.
The WNBA has experienced a surge in popularity over the past few years, thanks in large part to the arrival of Caitlin Clark with the Indiana Fever back in 2024.
Clark’s popularity has elevated the league to new heights, which has obviously benefited everybody, from the league to the players. A rising tide lifts all boats, right?
But it seems like the league has no interest in capitalizing on that newfound popularity, consistently leaving out Clark when it comes to their promotional material, underranking her among her peers, dismissing her impact in the media and allowing aggressive physical contact against her on the court to go unchecked.
Their problems are far more than bad officiating though: I mean, just this week the league announced that Game 6 of the WNBA finals between the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries would be played at 12:30 ET on Thursday after the Dream chose to move the game to nearby State Farm Arena instead of hold it in primetime at their smaller home arena. And the result has been the team and the league pointing fingers at each other for failing to plan for the possibility that a bigger arena would be needed.
They just can’t get out of their own way.
The WNBA has also faced renewed criticism, including from President Donald Trump, after the teams walked off the court before the national anthem ahead of earlier games in the series. The president took aim at the league, even encouraging supporters to boycott the WNBA altogether:
“By the way, what’s going on with the women’s NBA? What’s that all about? You know, they’ll destroy themselves before they get started, because they just started to do good. You know, the NFL did that for a while and they stopped because people stopped watching the games. I think you should do the same thing with women’s basketball.”
Of course this isn’t a new practice for many NBA teams, who have left the court for the national anthem dating all the way back to 2020 when the issue became a hot button political topic.
And during a recent interview with Theo Von on his This Past Weekend podcast, WNBA star Sophie Cunningham was asked her thoughts on the controversy.
The Indiana Fever star pointed out that this isn’t a new issue, and while she didn’t directly criticize the teams who decided to leave the court, she did seem indicate that she doesn’t have any plans to do it herself:
“I just feel like, personally, I have a lot of – I am grateful and I support the people who serve. We have family members who have served, and they’re over there doing things that are unimaginable for us to be out here living our dreams, and having the freedoms that we live.
So anytime that I can shout out our veterans and the people who are currently fighting for us to live in the best country, I’m going to show that support and I’m going to give them love. And so that’s where I stand. That doesn’t mean that’s where everyone stands and it’s right, wrong, whatever, but I take a lot of pride of where I come from and I’m proud to be an American citizen.”
That pride was on full display a couple months ago when Sophie hit up a local bar after an Indiana Fever game, hopping up on the bar with the singer to belt out the Toby Keith patriotic anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”
Don’t expect to see Sophie leaving the court for the national anthem any time soon.
