Sophie Cunningham Slapped With $1,500 Fine For Ripping WNBA Refs On Podcast

Sophie Cunningham just can't seem to keep herself out of trouble with WNBA referees.

On the latest episode of her podcast Show Me Something, the Indiana Fever enforcer said she was fined yet again for criticizing officials. This time, the punishment was for comments she made on the podcast's debut episode.

"The WNBA fined me," Cunningham told her co-host, West Wilson. "Dude, they fined me $1,500. I was like, what? This is just the beginning!

"What happens is [the WNBA] emails our GM, and she pulls me aside... and she just smiled and goes 'Hey, they’re gonna fine you again.' I even told them–I credited them that their job was hard! I did say that, and I said that I would not be good at it. I did say that, like, look at the whole picture! What are we doing?"

She did, in fact, say that. But she also said a lot of other things about the league's officials that the WNBA did not appreciate.

"If I was a ref, I know I would mess up all the time," Cunningham said on the July 30 podcast. "Like, I’m not saying that your job is easy, but when it is a simple call right in front of your face multiple times, what are you doing? What are you doing? … They’re just so inconsistent, like that’s one thing. If you’re on the other team, and you’re going to be fouling the sh*t out of me, cool. But let me do it to you… I think players across the league, and new fans across the country are like, what is going on with the refs? And I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ And you fining me $500 is not going to do sh*t."

Cunningham jokingly predicted she'd get fined for that comment. She was right. And the $1500 fine is a hefty step up from the $500 penalty Cunningham received a couple of weeks ago for poking fun at the refs in a TikTok video.

In the video, Cunningham lip-synced the words to Sabrina Carpenter’s song "Manchild" with the caption "@ some refs."

"Stupid. Or is it slow? Maybe, it’s useless," Carpenter sings in that particular portion of the song.

Cunningham posted the video just a few days after her teammate, Caitlin Clark, had a fiery exchange with an official during the Fever's game against the Connecticut Sun. In that same game, Cunningham took a couple of hard blows — including an elbow to the face — that weren't called by officials.

Coaches, players and broadcasters all over the league have voiced frustration this year over inconsistent calls, excessive physicality, and what they describe as a lack of transparency or accountability from league officials. But it seems the WNBA is making an example of Cunningham.