Sophie Cunningham Hints That WNBA Commish Should Be Fired

A month on from Sophie Cunningham’s ESPN interview ignited a firestorm debate about transgender people in sports, and the Indiana Fever guard is still getting lambasted for her comments.

Of course there’s a constant stream of remarks on social media, but she’s feeling it in person too. 

The Indiana Fever were up north in Canada’s Scotiabank Arena to take on the Toronto Tempo, and won 101-95. And though she had a 13-and-2 stat line, including 3-for-3 from downtown, USA Today reported that the boos in the arena were audible.

So audible that after the game she mentioned the hate from the opposing team’s fans and shrugged it off as passionate.

“I wanna shout out the Tempo crowd and the city,” Cunningham said. “The crowd was absolutely amazing, and you know, I think that’s what sports is all about. You’re gonna get boos. You’re gonna get cheers, but just the fact that they’re so passionate, they’re loud, and they’re putting on for the city, I think it’s amazing. So shoutout to you guys for coming out and supporting.”

In another interview, she went on to shout out the Tempo’s coach, Sandy Brondello, and the team’s top performers of the night like Marina Mabrey, who scored 22 points. And an even more impressive performance from Brittney Sykes, who’s returning from a two-month break following a plantar fascia tear in her foot, and still contributed 15 points.

“I wanna give Toronto their flowers,” she began. “What a great environment for women’s basketball. It’s a hell of a crowd. It’s a lot of fun to play in front of. Sandy Brondello’s doing a great job. Marina [Mabrey] and now they have [Brittney] Sykes back. I wanna give them their flowers because they’re a hell of a squad.”

Her comments come after she recently said she wanted to bring WNBA coverage back to focusing purely on the sport, taking a dig at the media.

She called the trans controversy a “distraction” and that all the media “ever do is cover everything except basketball.”

But she’s still got other opinions she’s spouting, even going as far as to suggest in an interview with USA Today that the WNBA needs a new commissioner who’s “bold, who is confident, who wants the best for the players and not maybe for themselves all the time.”

As for current WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, Cunningham believes it’s “a position that’s maybe open at the end of the year, but that’s not my call.”

She added, “With where our league is trying to go, I feel like you just want someone who also wants that. That’s just a hard position to be in, in her shoes, us as players – we always want more, more, more because we see how good it can be.”

See social media’s reaction to Cunningham’s latest outspoken comment below.