Sophie Cunningham says the FBI is watching about 20 people for her alone

Sophie Cunningham told Theo Von on This Past Weekend that she thinks the FBI is monitoring about 20 people for her alone because of stalking concerns. The Indiana Fever guard said the new attention around the WNBA has come with a darker side, including stalkers and real security risks.

That is the part of the WNBA glow-up nobody puts in the sizzle reel. The league finally got the TV audience, the private flights, the packed buildings, the people arguing online like it’s a municipal zoning meeting with jump shots. Then came the other crowd. The people who don’t just watch, they fixate.

Cunningham is a natural Theo Von guest because she speaks in bumper stickers, bar fights, and sudden sincerity. One minute she is calling herself “strictly dickly,” the next she is giving a better explanation of the WNBA’s media problem than half the people paid to cover it. But her stalker claim cut through the jokes because it made the league’s popularity boom feel physical. Not abstract. Not “women’s sports are having a moment.” More like, who is waiting by baggage claim?

we do have a lot of stalkers. I know I do.

Cunningham brought it up while talking about how much the WNBA has changed since her early years with the Phoenix Mercury, when players flew commercially and, by her telling, had little to no security. That old version of the league sounds almost quaint now, parents trying to stream games through some haunted app while the screen goes black, teams moving through airports like regular tall civilians. The new version has sold-out arenas and people who recognize players everywhere.

Like I we’ll have to check if I’m even allowed to say this, but like I like have I think 20 I think people kind of that the FBI are watching for me. Me alone

The number is soft. The risk isn’t.

The responsible read is this, Cunningham’s exact “20” comes with her own “I think,” so don’t treat it like a sworn affidavit. But the broader claim is credible, and the episode itself gives it a hard edge. Von’s producer pulls up a current court item saying a judge denied a bail reduction for a man accused of stalking Cunningham. Cunningham says that one is public knowledge and names him Kevin. Then, because this is still Theo Von’s studio and not a congressional hearing, she immediately spirals into whether she needs to rename her miniature donkey, also Kevin.

Actually, this is public knowledge. Yeah. His name’s Kevin. And the worst part about that is like my I have a miniature donkey named Kevin. And now I’m like, well, fuck Do I need to rename Kevin?

That joke is funny because it is ridiculous. It is also funny because the alternative is sitting too long with how creepy this is. The WNBA has spent years fighting for visibility, and Cunningham is honest enough to say the visibility is mostly good. She likes the packed arenas. She likes the platform. She likes that girls can see players who look like them. But she also says the league has entered the phase where security is not ornamental.

Her old airport story about Brittney Griner makes the point in slapstick form. Cunningham says the Mercury once got swarmed while traveling, with people going after Griner, and the players formed a circle around her. A security guy, or something like one, rushed in carrying Griner’s Louis Vuitton bags, flung them, and cracked Cunningham in the nose. It is a perfect WNBA transition fossil, the league halfway between under-resourced and famous, protected by vibes, teammates, and one very expensive projectile.

we literally had zero security and we got like swarmed and they were all kind of going like after her a little bit and so we all kind of like us as players like put a circle around her

The boom has a bill

Cunningham’s best point is that the perks and the dangers are part of the same machine. More TV means more fans. More fans means more money. More money means better travel and better hotels. It also means more parasocial weirdness, more people who think access is intimacy, more security files with names in them.

That makes her criticism of the league’s leadership hit differently. Later, she says the WNBA needs a commissioner with a real relationship with players, someone who communicates and has their backs. That can sound like standard athlete grumbling until you put it next to the stalker claim. A league asking women to become more visible has to be serious about what visibility costs.

Sophie Cunningham is not an impartial narrator. She knows how to sell a line, and she knows the camera likes her. But on this, the salesmanship doesn’t cancel the substance. If the WNBA wants the Caitlin Clark era, the sold-out buildings, the celebrity podcast circuit, the whole shiny thing, then it also gets the part where a role player can become famous enough to need federal attention.