Key Takeaways
- Sophie Rain agreed with Bill Maher’s description of the WNBA as a “soap opera,” suggesting its drama is “probably amped up” to attract attention and clicks.
- Viral player confrontations and Enes Kanter Freedom’s clash with the Chicago Sky have kept the league at the center of sports and culture-war conversations.
- The attention has coincided with record audiences, including 3.31 million viewers for Fever-Sky—the WNBA’s biggest regular-season audience since its inaugural 1997 season.
The WNBA has been almost impossible to ignore this summer.
Between record audiences, viral on-court confrontations, culture-war flashpoints and headline-making beefs, the league's 30th season has become as much a conversation machine as a basketball season. Ask Sophie Rain, and all that noise may be part of what's keeping eyes on the W.
During the Sept. 7 episode of Club Random, the OnlyFans star sat down with Bill Maher for a wide-ranging conversation that eventually veered into women's basketball.
Maher argued that one difference between the NBA and WNBA is the amount of off-court friction surrounding the latter, bluntly describing the women's league as “just a soap opera.”
“I see it. I can agree,” Rain responded.
Maher then suggested the drama could be one reason the WNBA has gained popularity.
“For sure,” Rain replied. “I feel like that's also why it's probably amped up too, just to get some traction to WNBA.” Maher extended the thought to the men's league, imagining an NBA where players “were all fighting and f***ing each other.” Rain saw the same math. “That definitely is going to get some clicks,” she agreed. “Definitely going to get some clicks for sure.”
There have certainly been enough flashpoints this season to test the idea that drama drives attention.
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham went viral in June after spending 22 seconds pointing at Phoenix Mercury forward DeWanna Bonner following a tense exchange involving fellow Fever guard Caitlin Clark. Days later, Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas was suspended after the WNBA assessed her a Flagrant 2 for making contact with Clark's throat area with her fist.
The attention hasn't stayed between the lines, either. Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom was removed from an Aug. 23 Fever-Sky game following a courtside confrontation with Chicago guard Natasha Cloud while wearing a shirt reading “WOMAN noun. adult human female.” The Sky later banned him indefinitely from its games at Wintrust Arena. Freedom filed a federal lawsuit on Sept. 3 alleging his First Amendment rights were violated, while Sky owner Michael Alter has maintained that Freedom was removed “for his conduct, not his speech” and called the lawsuit “meritless and frivolous.”
And whatever is fueling the conversation, people are definitely watching.
An Aug. 16 Fever-Dream matchup averaged 2.6 million viewers, making it ESPN's most-watched WNBA game ever on cable. One week later, Fever-Sky averaged 3.31 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, the league's biggest regular-season audience since the opening weekend of its inaugural 1997 season.
More eyes also mean more scrutiny. Sports economist David Berri told the Associated Press in July, “It's a much bigger platform now. Everything that happens is news,” pointing out that hard fouls largely went unnoticed a decade ago but are now magnified by increased coverage.
Rain has seen what happens when something breaks out of its usual bubble. Maher told her she'd landed on his radar despite the fact that he doesn't typically follow much pop culture unless it “rises to a certain level.” Earlier this year, the content creator showed an OnlyFans dashboard displaying more than $101 million in all-time gross earnings.
