MINNEAPOLIS — Sophie Cunningham ignited an interstate war with her comments ahead of Tuesday’s Commissioner’s Cup championship game against the Lynx, questioning why the WNBA would expand to cities like Cleveland and Detroit.
“You want to listen to your players,” the Indiana Fever guard told reporters. “Where do they want to play? Where are they going to get excited to play and draw fans?”
Cunningham’s comments, posted to social media by Yahoo! Sports, were in response to a question about the WNBA’s recently announced plans to add franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia by 2030.
Cunningham, who began her response by citing the importance of creating new opportunities for players, provided a few other options: “Miami would have been a great one. Everyone loves Florida. Nashville is an amazing city. Kansas City, amazing opportunity. There’s a huge arena downtown (Sprint Center) that no one’s using. And I think the women’s soccer league (in Kansas City) is showing that people draw.”
Cunningham noted the league needs to make sure it’s not expanding too quickly, then concluded her comments by saying: “You don’t want teams to totally dominate then have teams that aren’t. It’s a hard situation, but I don’t know how excited people are to go to Detroit or (Cleveland).”
As you can imagine, that bit of commentary — specifically toward the beginning and end of the clip — have created quite the stir on social media, with the two targeted cities weighing in.
The City of Detroit (@CityofDetroit) quote tweeted the video and wrote: “The last time we were home to a WNBA team (Detroit Shock) we ranked top five in attendance for five straight seasons, No. 1 in attendance for three straight seasons and set a single-game attendance record of 22,076 fans at Game 3 of the 2003 WNBA Finals. Additionally more than 775,000 people were excited to come to Detroit for the 2024 NFL draft. Detroit is a sports town. We’re sure we’ll see the same excitement for the WNBA returning.”
The admins behind City of Cleveland (@CityofCleveland) were a bit more direct in their response, including a video of one Caitlin Clark singing the city’s praises during the 2024 Final Four.
“Sophie, your teammate doesn’t seem to think Cleveland is too bad!” they wrote. “We’re proud to have been chosen to host a WNBA team and any player who comes here will feel that legendary passion Cleveland sports fans show our teams!”
It is unclear if or when Kansas City will come to the defense of Cunningham, a Missouri native and proud University of Missouri graduate, but we will continue to monitor the situation.
Meanwhile, other professional athletes, owners and others took issue with Cunningham’s comments.
Follow Brian Haenchen on Twitter at @Brian_Haenchen. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fever guard Sophie Cunningham unimpressed by WNBA expansion cities. Athletes, owner respond
Reporting by Brian Haenchen, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
