DETROIT – A WNBA player is getting roasted online for a comment she made about the city of Detroit.
Sophie Cunningham, who averages 5.6 points and 4.1 rebounds per game for the Indiana Fever, spoke Tuesday about the league’s planned expansion to Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia.
It was announced Monday that Detroit will receive a WNBA team in 2029, and most people inside and outside the city thought that was exciting news.
But Cunningham had a much different take.
Here are her comments:
I also think that 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?
I do think that Miami would have been a great one. Like, everyone loves Florida. Nashville’s an amazing city. Kansas City, amazing opportunity. There’s a huge arena downtown that no one’s using. ...
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 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.
So I just that it’s kind of a hard situation, but, man, I don’t know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or Cincinnati (Cleveland).
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham
You can watch the full video on X here.
It’s safe to say Detroiters aren’t happy with Cunningham’s comments. If she’s worried about sports fans here, maybe she should watch footage of Lions road games, or the crowd at Comerica Park this weekend, or Little Caesars Arena during the NBA playoffs, or last year’s NFL Draft, or any number of other examples.
The city of Detroit even weighed in:
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.
City of Detroit X account
One thing to know about Detroit fans is that they love their teams. Another is that they’ll swarm to defend the city when someone on the outside decides to take a shot.
Cunningham is learning all about that now. Looks like the new Detroit WNBA team has a rival before it even has a mascot.