Sophie Cunningham takes issue with WNBA reporters who cover ‘everything except basketball’ originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
For weeks, Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham has been facing negative attention.
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First, she took a hit for comments opposing transgender athletes in women’s sports published by ESPN. Then came a series of protests and counter-rallies that materialized outside Fever road games without her knowledge.
In fact, after a 108-100 loss to the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday, Caitlin Clark took the podium and offered diplomatic answers to the media about the controversy. Yet somewhere in all of the noise, the Fever have gone 19-11 and sit comfortably as one of the WNBA’s top playoff contenders.
However, in a post-practice interview with WISH-TV on Wednesday, Cunningham didn’t hold back on the media corps.
“The WNBA media, all we ever do is cover everything except basketball,” Cunningham said. “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.”
MORE: How Sophie Cunningham’s transgender athlete comments sparked WNBA controversy
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Cunningham is averaging 9.3 points off the bench this season for Indiana, functioning as a reliable sixth-woman on a Fever squad that ranks first in the WNBA in scoring at 96.5 points per game. USA Sports executive producer Jeff Behnke specifically cited her basketball passion when the network brought her on as a contributor this season.
In the process, all this off-court drama is happening right as the WNBA is exploding with record attendance and sky-high TV ratings. That makes the whole media argument pretty complicated.
The Fever get their next chance to let the basketball do the talking on Thursday night. They are hosting the 21-9 Las Vegas Aces at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on August 6, and the game has massive playoff seeding implications for both teams.
Whether the cameras actually focus on the court or zoom in on the player wearing No. 8 will tell us a lot about where WNBA media is at right now.
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