Culture wars and external agendas overshadow WNBA's 30th season

Pre-game press conferences are usually a bit of a nothingburger in the WNBA.

Coaches will answer questions about their starting line-ups, address recent trends and it is all very smooth and easy.

However, when Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White arrived at the podium prior to her team's clash against the New York Liberty this week, the mood was different.

White didn't let the journalists ask questions first, as is usually the case in these settings. Her press conference began and ended with a passionate two-minute address.

"The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that's trying to hijack our league will not win. It won't win. We are united. We are connected. We will not be divided," White said in part.

"Every day, these women put their ass on the line … I stand by them. I will always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell."

White's statement comes after another week where WNBA headlines have had very little to do with the on-court product.

It is sadly old news for a league that is undoubtedly growing but continues to be hijacked by different agendas, whether they be political, racial or financial.

Racial tensions in the WNBA were heightened earlier this week when Chicago Sky defender DiJonai Carrington tweeted "WHITE PRIVILEGE" and tagged the Fever account after being ejected from a game against the Fever due to a hard foul on Fever guard Sophie Cunningham.

Cunningham believed the foul was "absolutely" intentional, adding that Carrington probably had some "pent-up stuff".

White, Cunningham's coach on the Fever, did not think Carrington intended to hurt Cunningham, and was criticised by some for not supporting her players. It was a criticism that left the Fever coach seething.

Cunningham is the WNBA's latest main character, and it is hardly her first time in the limelight.

The 29-year-old isn't one of the WNBA's best players, but she is one of its most marketable.

A combination of a suite of endorsement deals, a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover, a guest UFC referee spot and an unofficial role as star teammate Caitlin Clark's bodyguard has all combined to net her 3.8 million Instagram followers.

For comparison, the WNBA's consensus best player and four-time league MVP A'ja Wilson has just 1.5 million followers.

Cunningham was the subject of an ESPN feature last month where she spoke out against the participation of transgender women in women's sports, saying "young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men".

When pressed about her comments a few days later, Cunningham did not back down, saying her stance is simply "common sense".

"I think I'll always believe in that," she said.

"I think it's really important to protect children, and that's little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said."

Cunningham has always presented her views on transgender athletes under the guise of protecting the sanctity of women's sport, and while she may be well-intentioned, the views are problematic in a league that prides itself on diversity and being a safe space for the trans community and other minorities.

Her comments were met with a wave of support for the transgender community from within the WNBA.

Cheryl Reeve, the head coach and president of the Minnesota Lynx, wore a T-shirt reading "Trans Kids Belong" when her team faced Cunningham's Fever.

"I come from a space of inclusion," she said.

"The narrative that I think is problematic is to suggest that transgender athletes are the biggest problem in women's sports."

The WNBA's Player's Association also denounced "hate abuse and demonisation of the transgender community" in a statement.

While Cunningham cares about the league and its future, her views opened the door to people outside the WNBA to gatecrash and use it as a vehicle to push their agendas,an all too familiar a tale for the league.

Unsurprisingly, US President Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance wasted little time jumping on the Cunningham train, with Vance labelling her "inspiring".

Riley Gaines, a vocal campaigner against the participation of transgender women in women's sports, also took a sudden interest in Cunningham and the WNBA.

Two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, have taken the jig a step further by declaring their intentions to enter the 2027 WNBA draft, more as an attack on the league's current eligibility guidelines and gender inclusivity as a whole rather than a genuine attempt to commence women's basketball careers.

It is a shameless publicity stunt that will ultimately fail. Sadly, it is coming at the cost of both the transgender community and women's sport as a whole.

White has done multiple interviews in a long-haired wig since declaring his draft eligibility and has claimed he is in his "feminine era".

Like Gaines, neither Kanter nor White have previously displayed much public interest in the WNBA.

Perhaps realising the firestorm her comments caused, Cunningham took aim at media covering the WNBA, accusing reporters of covering "everything except basketball" in the days following her ESPN interview.

The irony of it is that Cunningham's comments regarding transgender women in the WNBA came despite there being no transgender players in the league currently, or none about to enter the draft.

She was the one who drove the conversation away from the league's on-court product.

There should be headlines about the 2027 draft class. USC's Juju Watkins is one of the most exciting draft prospects in WNBA history. Her teammate Jazzy Davidson is another star in the making and could also declare.

Instead, we're all here talking about Kanter, a player who spent 11 seasons in the NBA, and White, a former first-round NBA draft pick, threatening to finagle their way into the league while pretending to care about the women's game.

Republican party's bid to claim Clark

Clark's arrival in the WNBA as the top pick in 2024 supercharged the interest in the league.

While her sensational long-range shooting and playmaking have endeared her to basketball fans, a different set of traits — being a catholic white woman from Iowa — made her the top target of the Republican Party.

Being the Republican representative of the WNBA is not a role Clark has ever asked for.

That hasn't stopped the Republican Party from attempting to use Clark as a weapon to wield in order to try and stoke race wars within the league, given the majority of its players are of colour.

Last month, eleven Republican politicians wrote to the WNBA asking the league to protect Clark from fouls that they deemed to be "attacks" on her because she is white.

The politicians claimed they were worried that "attacks against Clark may be racially motivated".

The Fever said they were unaware of the Republican letter and added that neither "our organisation nor Caitlin has had any interaction with anyone in this congressional group".

Ironically, while the Republicans complained over so-called attacks on Clark, it was a black player who fouled her, Alyssa Thomas, who was subjected to racist attacks on social media. Thomas was suspended for one game for her collision with Clark.

As Cunningham's teammate, Clark has also been involuntarily dragged into the transgender debate and has said it wasn't a topic of discussion within the Fever locker room.

Clark was asked for her thoughts on the matter in a post-game press conference and said: "It's for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions".

Conservatives are unimpressed that, unlike Cunningham, Clark has not publicly denounced the participation of transgender athletes in women's sport.

A bizarre sex toy invasion

The WNBA has also been used for financial gain, infamously for the betting company Polymarket.

Last season, multiple games were forced into stoppages after green coloured sex toys were thrown onto the court.

The toys were aimed at the court and towards the players, and one accidentally hit a man watching a game in the stands.

Eventually, members of a meme-coin group, Green Dildo Coin, took responsibility for the bizarre acts, claiming they were simply promotional stunts to promote the launch of their meme-coin.

Polymarket is a company that allows you to bet on pretty much anything, and as it turned out, people were betting on what games sex toys would be thrown on and what colour the toys would be, and then winning the money themselves by throwing the toys into the court.

One of the toys thrown came close to hitting Cunningham, and she denounced the actions on her podcast.

Reeve, as she did on the transgender topic, spoke out again, calling the sex toy saga the league's latest "distraction".

"The sexualisation of women. This is the latest version of that," she said.

"It's not funny and it should not be the butt of jokes on radio shows, or in print or any comments."

The WNBA is now in its 30th season and continues to go from strength to strength, whether its detractors like it or not.

A host of brilliant young players, headlined by Clark, are bending the realms of what was previously thought possible in the women's game.

Sport and politics are always more intertwined than people think, or like to admit, and unfortunately sport will always be wielded as a political tool by bad-faith operators for as long as it exists.

That is not a good enough excuse for the WNBA to be treated the way it so regularly is.

Cunningham may be passionate about defending women's sport, but has to know that she opened the door for the latest attack on her own league.