It seems the WNBA can’t catch a break when it comes to disrespect and sexist attacks, as another string of sex-toy attacks have alreay landed on the court.
For the second consecutive season, women’s basketball players have had sex toys thrown onto the court during games. Players have been forced to stop play, security has had to intervene and, in at least two cases, men have been arrested. The most recent event was just last Thursday in a game between the Los Angeles Sparks and the Atlanta Dream in LA.
The exact number of incidents is unclear, as items are often thrown but do not hit the court. However, what is clear is the frustration that is caused by the disruptions.
WNBA players are understandably angry. “It’s super disrespectful,” Chicago Sky player Elizabeth Williams said after one incident. “I don’t really get the point of it. It’s really immature.”
Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve put it more bluntly, calling the incidents another form of the longstanding sexualisation of women.
“This has been going on for centuries,” she said. “The sexualization of women. This is the latest version of that.”
And that is what makes the latest wave of stunts more than just an internet joke.
Women’s sport across the world has spent decades fighting to be taken seriously. Especially in the WNBA, players have had to argue for equal investment, coverage, pay and respect compared to their male counterparts, while their achievements are routinely treated as secondary to the spectacle surrounding them.
Finally, the WNBA is beginning to have its own moment. After decades of being largely ignored by mainstream sports audiences, the league has exploded in popularity, driven by players including Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson.
But the attention has brought a different kind of audience with it.
The league has increasingly become a stage for America’s culture wars, from debates over race to discussions about transgender representation in sports. Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham has become a particular focus after publicly opposing trans women competing in women’s sport, despite the WNBA having no trans player assigned male at birth.
Now, groups of men have reportedly attached their own stunts to that debate, throwing sex toys onto courts to generate viral attention. With this, they make the games a political statement.
There is something deeply contradictory about claiming to defend women’s sports while deliberately disrupting games played by women.
The irony is hard to miss: a league built by women, and sustained for decades by women and their supporters, is suddenly being flooded with attention from people who appear far more interested in using it as a cultural battleground than actually watching the sport.
As Cheryle Reeve said in a podcast on Tuesday, “Everyone’s trying to make sure the W is not a joke and it’s taken seriously, and then that happens.”
After decades of fighting to be taken seriously, the last thing WNBA players need is another group of men deciding that their games are the perfect place to make themselves the story.