Let’s talk about what happened at the Fever vs. Sparks game on August 5.
In the second quarter of the WNBA game, per CNN, a spectator threw a green sex toy onto the court, appearing to hit player Sophie Cunningham in the leg. And this was the third such incident in the past week. As a matter of fact, Cunningham herself had tweeted about the misogynistic new trend just days before she became its latest target.
“Stop throwing dildos on the court…you’re going to hurt one of us,” she wrote on August 1. After the August 5 incident, she quote-tweeted herself, writing wryly, “this did NOT age well.”
At least one of the people who threw a sex toy onto the court at a WNBA game has been arrested and charged, according to CNN, but the person who disrupted the Fever vs. Sparks game does not appear to have been identified yet.
After the game, Los Angeles Sparks coach Lynne Roberts emphasized safety concerns when speaking to reporters, per CNN. “I think it’s ridiculous, it’s dumb, it’s stupid,” she said. “It’s also dangerous and players’ safety is number one. Respecting the game. All those things. I think it’s really stupid.” Neither Roberts nor Cunningham mentioned the other obvious fact staring us all in the face: Nobody is throwing dildos on the court at men’s basketball games.
The popularity of women’s basketball has skyrocketed recently. In 2025, WNBA viewership on ABC is up 20 percent from last year’s season average, per ESPN. In 2024, the NCAA women’s basketball championship game drew a bigger audience than the men’s for the first time in history. Cunningham, Angel Reese, and Caitlin Clark, as three of the WNBA’s biggest current stars, have become world famous. All of this is an unqualified good for society, and hopefully a harbinger of more respect (and money) being afforded to female athletes in the future.
What sucks is that we also live in a patriarchal society in a time of feminist backlash. Our country’s Republican leaders have openly espoused retrograde attitudes toward women, while male podcasters such as Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan control the ears of millions of young men. So it’s pretty unsurprising that women gaining power in professional basketball—an area that has typically been dominated by men—would be greeted by this kind of misogynistic stunt. The message behind a sex toy, in particular, is pretty unambiguous. The intent is to sexualize and demean the women players because they are women. And that is nothing new at all.
If I had a nickel for every time a sex toy was thrown on the court at a WNBA game, I would have just three nickels. But if I had a nickel for every time a powerful female athlete was subjected to some kind of misogynistic backlash, I’d have enough money to fund my own women’s basketball league. Take, for instance, another women’s sports team that had the gall to outperform their male counterparts, the U.S. Women’s National Team.
In 2019, the team, led by Megan Rapinoe, won its fourth World Cup. But as Rapinoe’s star continued to rise, so did the sexist attacks. When they lost the World Cup in 2023, trolls on the internet and on TV celebrated the loss. That same year, Rapinoe called out the “deep level of misogyny and sexism” in the Spanish football federation after its president, Luis Rubiales, kissed player Jenni Hermoso on the lips. Tennis GOAT and fellow world-class athlete Serena Williams has also called out sexism in her sport. Notably, in 2018, she called out an umpire for sexist treatment of her, per ESPN. And that is to say nothing of other kinds of misogynistic threats female athletes face. In February, tennis player Emma Raducanu spotted a man who’d been stalking her in the stands in the middle of a match.
I don’t blame Cunningham or Roberts for declining to mention the sexism in the room. There’s a reasonable fear, especially considering what happened the last time Cunningham mentioned the trend, that this would only attract additional misogynistic attacks. Because that is still the world we live in.
The WNBA is still struggling with a string of sex-toy disturbances.
In the past week and a half, sex toys have been thrown on court during games in Atlanta on July 29, Chicago on Aug. 1, Los Angeles on Aug. 5 and Chicago again on Thursday night, with the most recent object hitting the court in the closing seconds of the Atlanta Dream’s victory over the Sky.
The sex toy that landed on the court in Los Angeles nearly hit Fever guard Sophie Cunningham during Indiana’s game against the Sparks. Sex toys were also thrown at games in New York and Phoenix last Tuesday but didn’t reach the court. Police say another toy was thrown at a game in Atlanta on Aug. 1, although it’s unclear if that one reached the court.
The distractions have created unexpected challenges for the league, the teams and the players, but also for arena security. Here’s what to know.
Are arrests being mad
A man was arrested Saturday in College Park, Georgia, after he was accused of throwing a sex toy onto the court during the Atlanta Dream’s July 29 matchup with the Golden State Valkyries, according to a police report. The report said he threw another sex toy during the Dream’s Aug. 1 game against the Phoenix Mercury, but that instance did not seem to result in a delay of play.
He is charged with disorderly conduct, criminal trespassing, public indecency and indecent exposure. All four charges are misdemeanors in the state of Georgia, meaning that if he is convicted, the punishment for each can be a fine of up to $1,000 or jail time of up to 12 months. A misdemeanor for public indecency and indecent exposure may also require registration on the state’s sex offender list.
The report said the man told police “this was supposed to be a joke and the joke (was) supposed to go viral.”`
Another man in Phoenix was arrested after police say he threw a sex toy in the crowd at a Mercury game on Tuesday. Police say the 18-year-old pulled the sex toy from his sweater pocket and threw it toward seats in front of him, striking a spectator in the back.
The man later told police it was a prank that had been trending on social media and that he bought the toy a day earlier to take to the game. He was later tackled by a volunteer at the arena who had witnessed the incident and began following him as the man tried to leave the arena.
Police say the man was arrested on suspicion of assault, disorderly conduct and publicly displaying explicit sexual material.
The New York Liberty told The Associated Press on Thursday night that there is an ongoing investigation into the throwing in New York and the team is cooperating with law enforcement.
What difficulties do arena security face in stopping this?
The types of sex toys being thrown onto the court generally do not include metal elements, meaning that arena metal detectors are not able to sense them. When carried on a spectator’s body, they become even more difficult to detect.
Arena security teams face challenges in catching these items, according to Ty Richmond, the president of the event services division at Allied Universal Security, a company that provides security services to certain NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLB and MLS arenas across the country.
“Not all stadiums are using a screening process that’s consistent and can detect (the sex toys) because of what it would require — pat down searches, opening the bags, prohibiting bags,” he said. “The conflict of expediency, of getting fans into the arena and into the venue, which is an important issue, and security and safety.”
The limits of arena security make legal action one of the strongest deterrents for this kind of behavior, Richmond said.
“The decision to prosecute and show examples of how people are being handled is very important,” he said. “Without a doubt, I think it will make a difference. The application of it is important, and publicizing that is important.”
There have not been any arrests made yet for the in Los Angeles and Chicago. In a statement to the AP, the Sparks said they are “working with arena personnel to identify the individual responsible and ensure appropriate action is taken.”
The WNBA has said that any spectators throwing objects onto the court will face a minimum one-year ban and prosecution from law enforcement.
How is it affecting players?
As the disturbances pile up, those on the court have become increasingly frustrated.
“Everyone is trying to make sure the W is not a joke and it’s taken seriously, and then that happens,” Cunningham said on her podcast after nearly being hit by one of the sex toys on Tuesday. “I’m like, ‘How are we ever going to get taken seriously?’”
No other professional sports leagues have faced sex toy disturbances like this. It has started a conversation online about the perpetrators’ choices to throw them during games in a women’s league and a league with a high-profile amount of lesbian and queer players.
“This has been going on for centuries, the sexualization of women. This is the latest version of that. It’s not funny. It should not be the butt of jokes,” said Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve Thursday. “The sexualization of women is what’s used to hold women down, and this is no different.”
Despite the criminal behavior leading to arrests, at least one crypto-based predictions market is offering trades essentially allowing users to wager on whether sex toys will be thrown at future WNBA games.
Players have also been sounding off on social media, echoing concerns about arena security protocols.
Liberty forward Isabelle Harrison posted on X last week, saying “ARENA SECURITY?! Hello??! Please do better. It’s not funny. Never was funny. Throwing ANYTHING on the court is so dangerous.”