Will the next Riley Gaines please stand up?
The right is suddenly sooooo obsessed with the WNBA. Funny how that works!
A face … a league … a (culture) war … a woman … a take … some kicks … to break the bonds of basketball.
What does it mean to be the face of something? How is a title like this decided? Why is this designation such a sign of respect in our culture? And have we, as a society, progressed past the ability to agree on who receives this honorific?
Try to conjure an image of the last person to be an undisputed face of a league, a movement, a genre, a philosophy. In politics, we fuss over this constantly. Float AOC as the face of the Democrats to a Blue Dog Dem and they’ll get madder than they do when the GOP tries to slash Medicaid. Position JD Vance as the face of MAGA post-Trump and you’ll get a lot of “hey nows” and “whoa nellys.”
It’s been no easier in sports. The face of men’s tennis out of the Big Three? Forget about it. Gun to my head I couldn’t tell you who’s the face of football. We’re on year 157 of debating whether MJ or Bron is the forever face of the NBA, and seemingly no closer to finding consensus. Ok … Simone Biles, Serena Williams, on those I think we can agree.
None of these titles, political or athletic, are given. To even be in the “FACE OF” conversation, you have to earn your keep. That is until social media came along, able to spread a face to billions of people, on millions of dedicated social channels, in hundreds of countries, in just a handful of seconds. The Caitlin Clark Effect: so real it has its own Wikipedia page.
What swirls around Caitlin Clark is a phenomenon unlike any that women’s basketball has ever seen, even around their many greats. But buzz, excitement, attention, obsession — do these automatically anoint you the face of a sports league? This debate rages on. Former NFL star RG III votes yes, with a nod to good stats on the court. Sports commentator Jemele Hill responds with a vote no, “She’s not the face because she’s not creating a new standard for winning (yet).”
This conversation and many others are being had in the space around Caitlin Clark, who at every chance she gets recently, has been trying to re-train social media’s focus onto the game she and 180 or so other women play. When politics comes knocking at her door, she defers. Now, CC is learning the hard way that diplomacy or neutrality leaves space for others to control your narrative for you.
Fame is an unfortunate, permanent side effect of Caitlin Clark’s love of basketball. Sophie Cunningham takes a more indulgent approach to fame and politics. This summer, the teammates are trying to figure out how to smooth a bumpy ride — moving between hero and villain, victim and perpetrator, social sensation and social outcast — in very different ways.
Caitlin has State Farm to keep her afloat, and now Sophie Cunningham is taking out an insurance policy of her own.
SOCIAL MEDIA TIMELINE
Here is as complete of a timeline as I could give you of the drama surrounding Indiana Fever teammates, Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham. Some things are left out because you all have a life you’ll eventually need to get back to.
🏀 May 8: The WNBA’s 30th season begins.
🤠 May 9: Caitlin Clark is the featured walk-out guest at controversial country singer Morgan Wallen’s concert, joining a host of fellow athletes also featured (Travis Kelce, Myles Garrett, etc). Instant backlash online because of Wallen’s history of affection for saying the n-word.
An example from Substack: Akilah Cadet, Caitlin Clark Is Racist — “When you allow a narrative to happen even if you don’t identify as a racist, that is racist.”
🥣 May 16: It’s around this time I really started noticing unusual attention being paid to building narratives about women’s basketball from people who haven’t historically been interested. Right-wing commentators like Jon Root and Jason Whitlock start pushing a narrative that the Fever coach and the league have “severe … Caitlin Clark Derangement Syndrome.”
🫵 June 22: If you haven’t seen this meme, I might actually argue you need to spend more time online. Sophie Cunningham steps into the enforcer and agitator role in defense of Caitlin Clark, gets into it with PHX’s DeWanna Bonner who wags a finger at her, so Cunningham points right back. For 22 looong seconds. While the security guard following her tries his hardest not to laugh.
This is, comfortably, a hall of fame sports meme. The internet loved it — from the White House, to WNBA legend Candace Parker.1
👊 June 24: In an even more physical Fever-Mercury matchup, CC gets pinned to the floor under the basket with Alyssa Thomas’ fist to her throat. Clark writhes in pain, refs miss the call — a pattern the team, fans, and the star herself brought up repeatedly to start the season.
The same day, the league releases their official 30th anniversary poster. One current or former player from each team, no Caitlin Clark. Amazing timing for instant rage. Clay Travis, founder of Fox-owned sports outlet OutKick, said: “The league got a golden goose and is doing everything they can to kill her.”2
🐘 June 25: Her cause is officially and fully adopted by right-wing influencers. Accusations of “reverse racism” take over internet discourse among a group of people with no history of an interest in women’s basketball. They argue Clark’s plight is worse than Black players integrating in 1940s baseball, Jackie Robinson included.
Grace Note: Over the next two weeks, every trooper in the take army unloads their clip on the latest culture war battlefront. Mark Jacob wrote a great piece on June 29 tallying how many pieces Fox News published about CC in the six days following fistgate: 21.
📋 July 1: Fever coach Stephanie White talks to the press and highlights the online vitriol that’s been directed toward Alyssa Thomas. Intervention from outside forces, uninvested in the league as a whole, does not go unnoticed: “I believe that this is people using our league, using our players to further divisive agendas.” (I’m impressed she clocked this, tbh.)
🚫 July 3: After being out with a back injury, Clark holds her first press scrum to offer her thoughts on the incident. She believes it was a flagrant foul, that reffing is an impossible job that should be paid more, that harassment and hate are not ok, and that it’s a “disservice to other teams” that we won’t move on from talking about what happened days before.
🐘 July 8: 10 GOP reps who make up the Republican Study Committee (whatever the fuck that is) post a letter addressed to WNBA Comissioner Cathy Engelbert threatening to get federal agencies involved if Caitlin Clark isn’t treated better. The Fever release a statement also being like “whatever the fuck this is,” no thanks.
🛑 July 12: Sophie Cunningham surprises UFC 329 viewers when she heads into the Octagon as a ring girl. The majority of backlash to this was delayed (see July 21), but focused on her apparent support of Conor McGregor, who was found liable of rape in a civil case in 2024.
⛹️♀️ July 18: Caitlin Clark scores a career-high and franchise-record 45 points, alongside 10 assists and six made threes in only 29 minutes.
📝 July 21: ESPN writer Hallie Grossman publishes a phenomenal profile of Sophie Cunningham. 100% worth a read. It provides clinician-level precision in dissecting her psyche — the why behind the who.
“...if Caitlin Clark is on the receiving end of an eye poke, after being on the receiving end of extra bumps and extra jawing and extra physicality that Cunningham thought should’ve warranted fouls but weren’t called as such all season long? That’s more than Cunningham’s call to action. By gawd, that’s Sophie Cunningham’s music.”
At the end of a checklist of titles Cunningham says she’s comfortable accepting — role model, authentic, even dirty — she resists on “MAGA Barbie,” before launching into a stump speech about her desire to dribble through the political middle. Here she decides, seemingly unprompted, to clarify her position on trans women in sports:
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
⏮️ July 22: Cunningham expands on her worldview further during the team’s media availability: “I said what I said.” In a five minute video with 13M views, she fields a few clarifying questions. All of these statements are included in her response, in this order:
“It’s really important to protect children”
“I’m not a very political person”
“I’ve never really even said anything about that”
“I feel very strongly about [protecting young girls/women in sport]”
“I think there is room for absolutely everyone here”
“I’m also there to love biological women and their rights”
The online right flew off the bench to show support: the Dept. of Education photoshopped a crown on the point meme, Rep. Mike Lee called her a hero, Lara Logan and J.K. Rowling clapped it up, Ben Shapiro did his own point celly, ESPN hosts current (Stephen A. Smith) and former (Sage Steele) endorse. Riley Gaines? We’ll get to her in a moment.
Grace Note: In the middle of all this fanfare, a writer for USA Today decides to publish an article invoking the lynching of Emmett Till to make a point about Caitlin Clark’s flopping … how are the side plots of this saga this batshit?
📣 July 23: The Indiana Fever release two statements. The first statement responds to former Fever player, Brianna Turner, alleging the team swept a real women’s safety issue under the rug last year when they fired a male staff member for sexual harassment. The second statement covers Cunningham, acknowledging their players are “thoughtful adults with their own perspectives and voices.”
Meanwhile: Karoline Leavitt extends the president’s support to “Sophia” Cunningham from the podium at a White House press briefing.
👟 July 24: As fate would have it, this is the day Adidas drops the custom Sophie Cunningham colorway of their Crazy Energy sneaker. Within two hours, they’re sold out in men’s and women’s sizes. This is hailed as a decisive culture war victory and the end of cancel culture (for like the 87th time). Critics were quick to point out the shoes are the colors of the trans flag. lol.
Surely riding that sold out high, Cunningham posts an Instagram with the caption, “I said what I said🫡” — it’s closing in on 700k likes. Something to note that I haven’t seen elsewhere: Three of her teammates showed support in the comments: Kay Timpson, Grace VanSlooten, and beloved vet Kelsey Mitchell. Interesting.
🏆 July 24-26: All-Star weekend in Chicago arrives. Clark is due for her third appearance, Cunningham didn’t make the cut. In the rounds and rounds of press the players are forced to do, Caitlin Clark strikes a noticeably more emotional tone. She emphasizes:
How out of touch the media can be with reality, how far some reports are from her true character, and how confusing that is for someone so young (24)
Here’s the best thing she said, on the fist-to-neck foul that kicked this drama into high gear:
“It’s basketball. When I walk out of the locker room, I shouldn’t be — not fearful of what the conversation is gonna be, but, you know, you just like, it’s emotionally exhausting. It’s draining [...] People don’t wanna talk about the basketball. They just wanna stir it up and make something else.”
In an environment of so much noise and so much political pawning, you’d understand if the last thing she’d want is another politician getting involved. But Barack Obama is retired from politics, so perhaps he gets a pass.
He finds her in a sea of women — and thankfully he’s mic’d up because we have an obstructed view — to say, “Don’t let all this nonsense get you down … don’t lose that joy.” It’s clear in her reflection about the moment that she really needed that. Even the right-aligned sports talking heads gave their props.
How a locker room gels (or completely shatters) in response to a player voluntarily opening a Pandora’s box of social issues, remains a huge part of my fascination with sports in the digital era.
While there may be no “I” in team, there’s definitely an “I” in pivot … in grift … opportunity … and OutKick.
SIGNED TO THE ROSTER
The average career in the WNBA is 3.5 years. When you think about all the blood, sweat, tears, and years these women have put into getting there, it’s devastating. They’re forced to cultivate other skills off the court that a lot of men don’t have to. While I think that’s actually a good thing, I can imagine it’s insanely hard, when you’ve been literally conditioned for one thing for 20 odd years.
So, despite the league’s expansion in teams and viewership, the odds aren’t exactly favorable for those pushing 30, especially if you’re not a starter. This leaves you with a few options: play abroad, start at the bottom in coaching, or take the recently well-traveled media path. That third option used to guarantee even more competition for even slimmer pickings.
In the past decade, player-owned media popping up in and around women’s sports has exploded. We now have podcasts from Sue Bird, Candace Parker & Aliyah Boston, Stewie, Lisa Leslie, Angel Reese, Syd Colson & Theresa Plaisance, and more. The StudBudz did 72-hours of livestream content over All-Star weekend, for God’s sake.
Like every other vertical of digital media, it’s getting crowded. What if there was a team a player could join where they could finally retire from the fight for playing time? That place exists if they look juuuust to their right.
Sophie Cunningham looks primed to walk into right-wing media’s starting lineup.
She already has a successful podcast, she’s building broadcast muscle on USA’s sports channel this year, and she just recited the spell that made the prototype of this sports-to-media pivot not just rich, but incredibly famous. Riley Gaines clearly sees the resemblance: She’s posted or reposted 26 tweets about Sophie Cunningham in the past eight days.3
After a whirlwind year making trans women her entire personality, Gaines signed a deal with OutKick to host a podcast “Gaines for Girls” on the topic. She relaunched the podcast as “The Riley Gaines Show” at the beginning of this year after re-signing a multi-year deal. Her commitment to this bit has landed her millions of followers, recurring Fox News appearances, White House visits, conference speaking gigs, anti-trans clothing deals, etc.
She’s very lonely in this space, clearly, so she seems to be actively recruiting a partner to take heat from the left in tandem. She hopes Coco Gauff is next which … lol. But recruiting — in sports and media alike — starts at the top. The OutKick founder, Clay Travis, has also been all over Cunningham online. “Love all of this.” “Rock star.”
If I was a gambling woman, I’d bet that OutKick contract is already drafted, waiting for the day she exits the league. Whether she signs it, I guess, is a bigger gamble — but one I’d still make, in spite of her commitment to framing herself as not political. And it was actually really easy to come to that conclusion. All I had to do was look at who she follows on Instagram.
Non-political people don’t follow the sum total of Erika Kirk, Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, The Daily Wire, Tucker Carlson, Officer Tatum, Becky Weiss, and more. If you showed this group’s content to a real non-political person, they’d be like get these freaks off my feed. Unless, of course, she’s supplementing her media diet elsewhere … outsourcing her left-wing content consumption to her podcast co-host, West Wilson … ew.
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LOOSE ENDS
📝 Word I learned today: pulchritude
physical comeliness — “Any high-pulchritude blonde woman who expresses views to the right of the extremist half of the Democratic Party is sure to be denounced as “MAGA Barbie.” (via Kyle Smith, WSJ Free Expression)
🥹 From our friends at Goodable: something to make you smile 🥹
Stray Cat Rescued From Tornado Becomes Local News Station Mascot to Boost Adoption Chances
“Stray Rescue of St. Louis said it picked up an injured orange tabby during severe weather on April 27, when neighborhoods across the city were dealing with hail as large as golf balls in some areas and reports of tornadoes east of St. Louis…
The cat was named after Steve Templeton, chief meteorologist for KMOV-4, who reports the weather live on air every weekday evening from 5 to 10 p.m.
‘Our little Steve Templeton came in with a broken back leg that couldn’t be fixed, so he had his leg amputated…’”
Grace Note: Steve has been adopted, so happy for him. The same rescue has many other available animals eager to be adopted, if anyone is in the area! They have incredible names like Fresh Cracked Pepper, Lopsided Larry, Cyborg (one eye), Pterodactyl, Hurricane Tortilla, Snooze, and Frog Dog.
a weird side story of the pointing meme — the WNBA players association has a rule that you can’t monetize moments that involve confrontation, blocking cunningham’s ability to license the point
more licensing technicalities, there’s a claim that Clark didn’t authorize her likeness to be used for the 30th anniversary poster, but it hasn’t been corroborated
riley gaines posts/reposts: league was smart theyd make her face, parody of a league, rt of clay travis, dont be pinoe be cunningham, another espn excerpt, rt root, rt abour rational thinking, rt jennifer sey, clip of double down, rt abs, hopes CC sues, pic of SC arby’s, rt teen activist, qt teen activist, who’s next, usa today writer pic, tagging coco gauff, defending SC view, her fox news segment, rt root on shoes, qt lynx coach comments, rt clay travis, rt root shoes again, rt jk rowling, rt justine bateman, new fox news segement
This is so good. I knew you would write about Cunningham!
The MJ Bron debate is a great line. It's all great.