Sophie Cunningham questions WNBA's expansion choices

USA Today

3 days ago

Hours before the Indiana Fever's 74-59 win over the Minnesota Lynx to capture the WNBA Commissioner's Cup on Tuesday night from Minneapolis, Minn., Indiana guard Sophie Cunningham questioned the league's recent choices for expansion markets.
On Sunday, the WNBA announced expansion to 18 teams. The WNBA revealed it had awarded expansion franchises to the cities of Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. That trio joins the Golden State Valkyries, who tipped off play in May of this year, and Toronto and Portland who will begin play in the 2026 season.
Cleveland would begin play in 2028, followed by Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030.
Cunningham wasn't too keen on a pair of the WNBA's expansion choices.
"Yeah, you would think that you'd want to try to get more of the country engage in the WNBA. I totally get kind of having the brother team of having the NBA side, because it is helpful. You just get more perks, there's more opportunities, and so I get that aspect.
"But, I also think you want to listen to your players, too. Where do they want to play? Where are they going to get excited to play and draw fans? And I do think that 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 that no one's using. And I think that the women's soccer league is showing that people draw," Cunningham said.
The 6-foot-1 guard was also wary of the league expanding too fast.
"And so, I'm not so sure what the thought process is there. But, at the end of the day, you also want to make sure that you're not expanding our league too fast. I think that that's also another thing that you don't want teams to totally dominate and then have teams that aren't.
"I just think that it's kind of a hard decision or situation. But, man, I don't know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or (Cleveland)," Cunningham said.
While it will be the first WNBA franchise to call Philadelphia home, both Cleveland and Detroit have had WNBA teams in the past.
The Cleveland Rockets played from 1997 until 2003, when they ceased operations. Meanwhile, the Detroit Shock existed for 12 seasons, from 1998 to 2009, during which it captured three league titles (2003, 2006, and 2008) in four WNBA Finals appearances before relocating to Tulsa and ultimately Dallas.
These remarks sparked a social media firestorm in both Detroit and Cleveland, as the two passionate sports fan bases rushed to rebut the Fever guard's statement.
Most notable among the Detroit pushback was the actual City of Detroit, which responded by noting the Shock's top-five ranking in league attendance for five straight seasons, topping the charts in three campaigns, and setting a single-game attendance record of 22,076 fans in the playoffs. The city also referenced the historic fan turnout for the 2024 NFL draft as a reason to believe the same enthusiasm will return when their expansion team begins play in 2029.
On the Cleveland side, the City of Cleveland clapped back at Cunningham's remarks by sharing a video of fellow Indiana teammate Caitlin Clark praising the city's entertainment scene and sports culture while attending the 2024 Women's Final Four as a member of the Iowa women's basketball program.
While Cunningham's thoughts on the league's expansion choices were bold, the sports world will have to wait a few more years to see whether her words hold any merit.
This league's planned expansion in the three announced markets would need to be signed off by the WNBA and NBA Boards of Governors, but its approval does not appear to face any form of pushback.
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