{"id":56153,"date":"2025-08-09T04:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T04:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/56153\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T04:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T04:40:07","slug":"wnba-working-with-law-enforcement-to-pursue-felony-charges-where-applicable-in-handling-of-sex-toy-barrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/56153\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA working with law enforcement to pursue ‘felony charges where applicable’ in handling of sex toy barrage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA issued a new statement with The Athletic on Friday about the barrage of neon green sex toys<\/a> that have been interrupting games across the league since July 29.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety of everyone in our arenas remains a top priority,\u201d the statement from a WNBA spokesperson reads, via The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are working closely with local and federal law enforcement to pursue all appropriate actions \u2014 including arrest and prosecution with felony charges where applicable \u2014 against anyone engaged in this conduct or otherwise involved in sponsoring this reckless and unacceptable behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The W previously released a statement last weekend<\/a>, warning that anyone throwing an object onto the court would be immediately ejected and subject to a minimum one-year ban, along with risk of arrest and prosecution by local authorities.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the group behind the meme coin Green Dildo Coin, which is taking credit for the sex-toy-throwing “pranks,” spoke to USA Today<\/a> anonymously in an interview published Thursday.<\/p>\n

The meme coin was launched July 28 to oppose what the group considers the crypto world’s “toxic environment,” per USA Today. A day later, the first sex toy incident took place. The spokesperson whom USA Today interviewed maintained the green sex toys were intended as marketing devices.<\/p>\n

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The Athletic reported<\/a> that, as of Thursday, the coin’s worth had just about tripled in its first week.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t do this because like we dislike women’s sports or, like, some of the narratives that are trending right now are ridiculous,” the cryptocurrency group spokesperson said, via USA Today. “Creating disruption at games is like, it happens in every single sport, right? We’ve seen it in the NFL, we’ve seen it in hockey, you know, … fans doing random things to more or less create attention.<\/p>\n

“We knew that in order to get a voice in the space … we had to go out and do some viral stunts to save us from having to pay that influencer cabal, sacrifice our souls and the fate of the project, more or less.”<\/p>\n

WNBA players and coaches, as well as fans of the league, are understandably frustrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sexualization of women is what\u2019s used to hold women down, and this is no different,\u201d Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said Thursday<\/a>. \u201cThese people that are doing this should be held accountable. We\u2019re not the butt of the joke, they\u2019re the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days earlier, after another object was thrown<\/a> at a Los Angeles Sparks game, Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts sounded off.<\/p>\n

“It’s ridiculous. It’s dumb. It’s stupid,” Roberts said. “It’s also dangerous, and, you know, player safety is No. 1, respecting the game, all those things. I think it’s really stupid.”<\/p>\n

Two arrests have been made, although neither person arrested is part of the cryptocurrency group, according to the spokesperson who talked to USA Today.<\/p>\n

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While the group’s spokesperson suggested that future “pranks” will be “more tasteful” and “in different places that are high-traffic areas with cameras,” two more objects were thrown<\/a> in a WNBA game Thursday night, interrupting play between the Chicago Sky and Atlanta Dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA issued a new statement with The Athletic on Friday about the barrage of neon green sex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[732,49,48,726,37288,36808,632,736,37289,36849,82,7942,36185,630,11043],"class_list":["post-56153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago-sky","tag-federal-law-enforcement","tag-green-sex","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-neon-green-sex","tag-spokesperson","tag-sports","tag-the-athletic","tag-usa-today","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}