{"id":866262,"date":"2026-08-21T14:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866262\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T14:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:06:10","slug":"cathy-engelbert-says-people-are-trying-to-sow-divisiveness-in-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866262\/","title":{"rendered":"Cathy Engelbert says people are trying to \u2018sow divisiveness\u2019 in WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert denounced people that she said are \u201ctrying to \u2018sow divisiveness\u2019 as the league grapples with a debate over transgender athletes.\u201d Engelbert\u2019s comments in a pregame gathering ahead of the Wings\u2019 win over the Fever in Dallas \u201cwere her first since the league called out what it said were bad faith efforts to use the debate to \u2018demean or marginalize others\u2019\u201d in a statement made last week. Engelbert, echoing NBA Commissioner Adam Silver\u2019s recent comment<\/a>, said, \u201cWe\u2019re being the center of political football for people who have never watched the WNBA, never have written about the WNBA or reported on the WNBA\u201d (AP, 8\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Several politically conservative groups \u201crallied outside\u201d the American Airlines Center Thursday supporting Fever G Sophie Cunningham, urging the league to \u201cclarify eligibility rules for transgender athletes.\u201d No organized counterprotest \u201cwas apparent\u201d outside the venue. Organizers later \u201chanded out signs supporting Cunningham and opposing transgender athletes competing in women\u2019s sports to people heading toward the arena\u201d (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 8\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A spectator \u201churled a green sex toy\u201d onto the court at Crypto.com Arena in L.A. during the third quarter of the Dream\u2019s 124-88 victory over the Sparks. The incident sparked \u201cflashbacks to last season\u2019s spate of projectiles<\/a> tossed on the court at WNBA games.\u201d Dream F Angel Reese \u201cquickly pointed out the perpetrator from her seat on the bench, and the spectator was apprehended by arena security\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 8\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert denounced people that she said are \u201ctrying to \u2018sow divisiveness\u2019 as the league grapples…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[461,49,48,82,630,4143],"class_list":["post-866262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866262","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=866262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}