The city of Detroit’s official account on X “could not let” Fever G Sophie Cunningham “off the hook” with numbers and information at its disposal after her comments about bringing expansion teams to Detroit and Cleveland, according to Tarohn Finley of the DETROIT NEWS. A post on X by the city of Detroit read, “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” (DETROIT NEWS, 7/1). SI’s Grant Young noted that the city of Cleveland’s X account “responded” with a video of Fever G Caitlin Clark “saying, ‘I had never been to Cleveland before, it has been awesome’” at the 2024 Women’s Final Four in Cleveland. The account’s post read, “Sophie, your teammate doesn’t seem to think Cleveland is too bad!” (SI, 7/1).
POPULAR HOST: In Akron, George Thomas wrote “plenty of people were excited” to go to Cleveland and Rocket Arena for the Women’s Final Four “considering the games were sold out” and drew 36,584 fans (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL, 7/1).
BACK IN MO: In K.C., Pete Grathoff wrote that the city has a “huge arena downtown that no one’s using, and I think that the women’s soccer league is showing that people draw.” Cunningham’s soccer comment was “clearly about the Kansas City Current, who have their own stadium” (K.C. STAR, 7/1).
MORE REACTION: Plenty more reactions poured in on social media to Cunningham’s comments:
- Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert: “Come on Sophie, obviously you haven’t been to Detroit or Cleveland... you should support your Midwest sisters in this league and these two great cities that you’re going to come to know and love very shortly.”
- Cavaliers G Donovan Mitchell: “Cleveland in the summertime [two fire emojis]”
- Cavaliers F Tristan Thompson: “Cleveland is an unbelievable sports town, with great people, great restaurants, and its great for outdoor/nature activities. Still surprises me to see people say stuff like this.”
- Lions team account: “Team not even here yet and we already got haters [laughing emoji] #DetroitVsEverybody.”
- Lions OT Dan Skipper: “You ever been there? Pretty good place to play, well not for you now.”
- Reporter Jemele Hill: “Sis, you play in Indiana. No disrespect.”
- Reporter Mike Golic Jr.: “Sophie, you don’t wanna piss off City Twitter.”
