Sophie Cunningham’s opinion helped create a spectacle. The WNBA should be thanking her

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So far, Sophie Cunningham’s Culture War Pop-Up has been a big hit in three cities. It rolls through Toronto in two weeks.

It started in Seattle, shortly after ESPN published a lavish profile of the WNBA star. In it, Cunningham fired up the publicity generator that is any discussion of transgender participation in women’s sport.

She did it the new woo-woo way – she wants to “extend love,” but she also wants to “protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

This isn’t the beginning of a fight. It’s an invitation to dance. It’s moderate conservatism versus the reactionary left for all the likes. So far, Cunningham’s winning in a rout.

Until recently, Cunningham was best known as the Kevin Costner to Caitlin Clark’s Whitney Houston. Whenever someone puts a hand on Clark, Cunningham arrives shortly thereafter with a flying clothesline.

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Everybody’s looking to build a personal brand in sports these days. After eight anonymous years in the league Cunningham had found hers – telegenic goon. But while that will sell shoes, it won’t make you notorious. For that, you have to shift into politics. Cunningham picked the perfect moment – midsummer, when nothing’s happening anywhere in sports – to launch her campaign.

The first person to take Cunningham on was Celeste Keaton, a co-owner of the Seattle Storm. When two teenage girls brought signs supporting Cunningham to the game in Washington, Keaton confronted them angrily. After one of the girls’ mothers lit her up online, Keaton was suspended and fined. Once that happened, the WNBA burst the boundaries of the Sports section.

Cunningham has played it brilliantly since. Not retreating from her initial position – that way lies doom – but also not extending her front lines. Instead, she keeps saying the word “love” a lot.

Next stop, another hippie redoubt, Portland. This time there were protests pro and con. Fans in the arena jeered Cunningham. I get that a lot of these customers are new to the ugly side of sports, but haven’t they seen Godzilla? You hit him with nuclear bombs and he gets stronger. Cunningham was plainly elated by her spotlight.

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Then on to Minnesota, the recent epicentre of American resistance. This time it was the opposing coach, Cheryl Reeve, who was looking for some press. She denounced Cunningham in tones of high dudgeon, and wore a T-shirt reading “Trans Kids Belong.”

Sensing the televisual opportunities, Cunningham and Reeve came together on the court to have what looked like an unfriendly conversation. Neither would say exactly what was said, but Cunningham won that one, too, because she’s the player and Reeve is the coach. The teacher always looks ridiculous when they are reduced to bickering with the students.

One of the meta issues for the WNBA is that the bigger it gets, the less able it is to control the conversation about itself. Five years ago, Reeve would have been met with nothing but hallelujahs from the league’s fans in the media. But now outsiders have taken an interest.

The biggest American fish of all, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, took Reeve apart after the game – “Ladies and gentleman, at some point in time, there has to be the return of common sense.”

Smith has nothing in common with Walter Cronkite aside from being on TV, but he’s the closest thing to Cronkite they have now. He’s the unaligned middle ground.

When Smith is laying you out in a multiplatform fusillade, you’re losing. Presumably, this will result in an even more furious counterattack.

There are two winners here. Cunningham first and foremost. It was beginning to seem like the factory setting personality for all modern pros is ‘You can’t know how terrible it is to be famous.’

It’s a lovely refresher to encounter one that wants it, knows how to get it and, having got it, doesn’t expect to pick and choose. If you want the adulation, you have to accept the infamy. Maybe Cunningham learned it from Clark, who is both the WNBA’s biggest attraction and least valued commodity.

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The other winner is the WNBA writ large, though the league would never admit it on the record.

It used to be that all publicity was good publicity, because there wasn’t that much publicity. You took it where you could find it.

Then the internet arrived, and publicity, ingested in large doses, became toxic. All of a sudden, nobody wanted a million dedicated Facebook weirdos getting into their business.

But when the internet began to overflow, we reverted to the initial wisdom. There is so much crap out there that being talked about – in any way, by anybody – is an attentional victory.

Look at the PWHL. It’s a success on the ground, but a nonentity in the media hive mind. That allows the league to stick to the sports, which is boring as hell. Best of luck with that business approach long term.

Through Cunningham, Keaton, Reeve and everybody else who wants to stick an oar in, the WNBA is out there making a spectacle of itself. The goal isn’t winning fans. That comes later. What you need to do first is get people invested in the story.

Every league should think of itself as a soap opera. Who are my characters? Which of them are the heroes and the villains? Can some be both? How do I create crises, and how do I resolve them?

Sometimes this narrative momentum has to be imposed. And sometimes you luck into a Sophie Cunningham, who has the entrepreneurial drive to do it on her own. Every owner in the league should kick in to pay her a bonus.

Obviously, there are risks. Take it too far, one way or the other, and your existing customer base might turn on you. But isn’t that the fun? Who wants to watch a show if they already know how it ends?