Texas's two most prominent Republican officeholders spent this past week planting themselves inside the fight over Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, while the WNBA commissioner she's been publicly needling finally broke her silence.
A Senate candidate makes a scene in Dallas
Attorney General Ken Paxton brought his U.S. Senate campaign to American Airlines Center on Thursday, sitting through Indiana's 91-85 loss to Dallas wearing a matching "XX-XY" shirt with his daughter Mattie while advocacy groups rallied outside before tip-off. Asked directly whether Cunningham's supporters have been treated fairly by the league, Paxton stopped short of outright criticism. He told Fox News Digital's OutKick he was cautiously encouraged that things were improving, though, in his words, "I have concerns."
Asked whether his office might formally intervene if the pattern continued, Paxton offered nothing concrete — only that his team was watching the situation closely and wanted fans treated fairly.
Two incidents, two different outcomes
The concern traces back to a pair of run-ins that have already cost the league money and goodwill. The first came in late July, when two teenagers holding pro-Cunningham signs at a Seattle Storm home game said co-owner Celeste Keaton cursed at them. The league answered with a five-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for Keaton, and the Storm organization apologized publicly.
The second came Aug. 16 in Atlanta, where a Georgia mother and her teenage daughter say security approached them during overtime of the Fever's game against the Dream and told them to cover their XX-XY shirts or leave. The league later acknowledged the encounter shouldn't have happened.
Paxton was far less hedged about the underlying policy dispute. He pointed to Texas laws barring transgender athletes from public school and college competition — statutes that carry no authority over a private professional league — and cited his office's ongoing lawsuit over how the NCAA verifies athlete eligibility.
Thursday's gathering outside the arena marked the eighth "Sophie Night" rally organized by women's sports advocacy groups ahead of a Fever road game this season. Among the speakers was Kim Slusser, whose daughter Brooke played volleyball at San Jose State and later joined litigation over sharing a team and an apartment with a transgender teammate for nearly two years without knowing it. Paxton singled the family out for praise, holding them up as the kind of public advocacy he'd like to see more of nationally.
A campaign stop as much as a culture-war one
The appearance doubled as a campaign swing. Paxton ousted four-term incumbent John Cornyn in a May primary runoff and now faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico this November. Much of what he said in Dallas leaned into that framing — casting Cunningham as courageous and urging fellow Texans to support her rather than criticize her.
Abbott takes a lighter jab from a different angle
Gov. Greg Abbott waded into a related but separate corner of the story this week. In a conversation with commentator Benny Johnson, Abbott joked about former NBA players who've declared for the WNBA's 2027 draft as a protest of the league's eligibility rules, predicting the league was "going to be a whole lot more competitive" as a result. He added that if anyone could hold their own against the men, it would probably be Caitlin Clark and Cunningham — a lighter aside aimed at the draft-eligibility stunt rather than the fan-treatment question Paxton had addressed.
Engelbert answers Cunningham directly
The more consequential development came Thursday, when Commissioner Cathy Engelbert broke her silence on Cunningham's suggestion that the league needs new leadership. Sitting beside Dallas Wings CEO Greg Bibb ahead of the Fever-Wings game, Engelbert said "people are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness," framing the uproar as a fight waged largely by outsiders with no real connection to women's basketball — language that echoed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's own description of the debate as a "political football."
It was Engelbert's first on-record response since Cunningham told USA Today earlier in the week that the commissioner's job could be "maybe open at the end of the year," arguing the league needs a bolder leader who prioritizes players. Engelbert's own contract runs through the close of this season, and any decision on renewing it belongs to Silver and the league's board — leaving the two women, for now, talking past rather than to one another.
What comes next
The scoreboard barely registered next to the surrounding noise. With the 2027 draft-eligibility question still unresolved, Cunningham's leadership comments still drawing responses, and both of Texas's top elected Republicans now on record, this story shows no sign of cooling as the WNBA regular season heads into its final stretch.
