Sophie Cunningham Speaks Out Against Men in Women Sports

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
All right, good for Sophie Cunningham from Your Indiana Fever. In a recent interview with ESPN, Sophie stood up for protecting women's sports. On ESPN, I don't know what I'm more amazed at, this, you know, another player coming out against men playing women's sports, or this was allowed on ESPN.

**Nigel** (0:22)
It's been a wild 24 hours for ESPN. They fired the very woke Ryan Clark, among others.
And they're having this big article where Sophie Cunningham basically states, yeah, it's not OK for dudes to be dressing in the same locker room and playing against girls.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:42)
You have to quote here, quote, I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I'm like, I never once said that. I think that I'm here to extend love. But I also think that love is truth.
Being honest, and I want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against a biological man.

**Nigel** (1:05)
Good for her. And I think it's ridiculous that that's viewed as a hot take in today's society.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:11)
I was going to say, is it, I don't want to say is it too little too late, but I mean, Martina Navratilova was saying this before it was cool. You know what I mean? And she's one of the biggest ardent, you know, gay supporters, activists, athletes alive.

**Nigel** (1:26)
She walks the walk and talks the talk.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:28)
Yeah, exactly. And she was saying this about men and women's sports years ago.

**Nigel** (1:34)
Venus Williams, some would argue the greatest female tennis player to ever play.
She did an interview where she said, there are differences. Men are bigger. Men are stronger. Men are faster. Does that make Venus Williams some sort of right-wing nut the way they're trying to paint Sophie here? No. And you know what? Good for Sophie for not bowing down to the pressure and the mob. Because in that league, the WNBA, there's a lot of pressure to be super woken over the top. And Sophie doesn't do it. And I think that's one of the reasons why she's so popular. She has her own shoe line now.
Not because she's anywhere near the best player in that league. She comes off the bench, honestly, here for the fever.
But they love her spirit. They love her spunk. She's marketable. She tells the truth. People see themselves in Sophie. Like, there are so many girl dads out there. And you fall in this category, Nigel. You've got a daughter that's like, hell yeah, Sophie. Thank you for saying it out loud. Thank you for having your platform being a female in sports to say it's not OK for a dude to be playing against girls and dressing in the locker room with them.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:57)
And of course, there's other people that haven't said word one about that. Like, I don't think Caitlin Clark's come out and said anything similar to what to what Sophie's said. And she doesn't have to. That's my whole point. I mean, that's a lot of the reason we talked about this last week. Some players don't like Caitlin Clark because she doesn't use her platform the right way on social issues.

**Nigel** (3:18)
She's not gay enough. She's not woke enough. Like, Caitlin Clark wore the T-shirt that said, pay us our worth or pay us more, whatever it was. OK, she wore the shirt, even though if it came down to dollar for dollar, she could make more money than anybody there just based off of endorsements. But she played ball. She did it. And what does she get in return?
Knock to the ground, punch to the throat, like beat up every single game. Now, I'm not saying Caitlin's perfect. She flops a lot. She bitches a lot. I mean, that's fair to say. Two things can be true at the same time. She's got a little LeBron in her. She flops a lot. She complains constantly. I've sat at a fever game and I've watched Caitlin.
She works that referee out. But on the other side, she's getting the living crap beat out of her throughout the game. And it's a no call. So I get it. By the way, fever have a home game tonight against Connecticut.
The All-Star Weekend is coming up for the WNBA.
And in the most WNBA thing imaginable, they screwed it up. Like the marketing people, the commissioner, the people running that league, have to be some of the dumbest people alive.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:37)
What happened?

**Nigel** (4:38)
So Sophie Cunningham wanted to be in the three point contest. Now, this is not the All-Star game. This is just the three point shootout.