Indiana Fever reserve guard Sophie Cunningham endeared herself to a lot of people when she advocated against the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports in a July 21 ESPN profile.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” she said in the feature. “I think that I am here to extend love. 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.”
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Unfortunately, a viral TikTok from Sportico exposed that many of these “new fans” don’t actually care about the basketball being played in the league and instead view the WNBA as a vehicle to advance their own political agendas.
Nevertheless, people and outlets continue to back Cunningham for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball. On Tuesday, Outkick’s Bobby Burack was upset with The Daily W, a WNBA podcast, for ranking Sophie Cunningham behind Seattle Storm rookie Awa Fam and Sky guard DiJonai Carrington on its list of the “hottest players” in the league.
“Okay, this is nuts,” Burack posted on X.
“A WNBA podcast discussed the ‘hottest player in the league’ (based on looks) and picked DiJonai Carrington and Awa Fam. They didn’t even mention Sophie Cunningham or Cam Brink. Outrageous.”
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If Burack was a true Cunningham fan, he’d recognize that she wants the focus to be on the basketball being played in the league, and likely doesn’t care at all about rankings such as these. However, his take is far from surprising. His colleague at Outkick, Dan Dakich, called Cunningham’s superstar teammate Caitlin Clark “kinda cute.”
Hopefully, with football season right around the corner, people who have no real interest in the WNBA will return their focus to sports they’re actually interested in so that real fans can enjoy the league without the outside noise.
The post ‘Outrageous’: Analyst furious after Sophie Cunningham passed over for ‘hottest player’ in WNBA appeared first on The Comeback: Today’s Top Sports Stories & Reactions.
