{"id":573299,"date":"2026-04-09T06:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573299\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T06:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:09:14","slug":"sophie-cunningham-officially-enters-wnba-free-agency-amid-exciting-new-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573299\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham Officially Enters WNBA Free Agency Amid Exciting New Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie Cunningham<\/a> announced some big news on Wednesday, away from the Indiana Fever<\/a> and outside the WNBA<\/a>. This comes in the form of the 29-year-old being included in the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue<\/a>. This major development comes just one day after she announced that she will be joining USA Network\u2019s broadcast<\/a> of the 2026 WNBA season as a guest contributor.<\/p>\n

Cunningham has obviously been busy during the offseason. However, she will now need to turn her attention to a pressing matter in her basketball career.<\/p>\n

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Wednesday is the first day that teams are able to officially negotiate new deals with free agents. This means that the Fever can now officially enter talks with Cunningham on a new contract.<\/p>\n

\"Indiana<\/p>\n

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham (8) against the Phoenix Mercury in the first half of a WNBA game.\u00a9 Mark J&period; Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

(\u00a9 Mark J&period; Rebilas-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

The WNBA took to social media to make an official announcement about free agency. The league provided a list of all the players who officially entered free agency on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s official \u2705<\/p>\n

\u201cCheck out the full list of 2026 Unrestricted Free Agents, Restricted Free Agents, Reserved Players, and Core Players!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Cunningham is one of the headliners for the list of unrestricted free agents. While the list includes some of the biggest superstars in the WNBA, there\u2019s no denying that Cunningham stands out as one of the biggest draws, especially when it comes to her popularity with the fans.<\/p>\n

Other big-name unrestricted free agents on the list are A\u2019ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Kahleah Copper, Jonquel Jones, Nneka Ogwumike, Alyssa Thomas, Brittney Griner<\/a> and Jackie Young.<\/p>\n

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The likes of Lexie Hull and Rhyne Howard, on the other hand, headline the restricted free agents list.<\/p>\n

The Fever\u2019s No. 1 priority in free agency, Kelsey Mitchell, is listed as Indiana\u2019s core player. This puts the Fever in an advantageous position<\/a> to re-sign the three-time All-Star. This is also the case for Hull, who is a restricted free agent.<\/p>\n

The same cannot be said for Cunningham, though. While both parties have indicated a willingness to extend her tenure in Indiana, Cunningham is free to accept a more lucrative offer from any other team in the WNBA.<\/p>\n

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Related: Sophie Cunningham’s New Swimsuit Photos Draw Attention<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Apr 8, 2026, where it first appeared in the WNBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham announced some big news on Wednesday, away from the Indiana Fever and outside the WNBA. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[650,15447,435,5550,6403,125645,2839,7638,14400,16802,4806,5621,4385,5551,195257,18118,4805,99,195258,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-573299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-aja-wilson","9":"tag-alyssa-thomas","10":"tag-breanna-stewart","11":"tag-brittney-griner","12":"tag-free-agency","13":"tag-free-agents","14":"tag-indiana-fever","15":"tag-jackie-young","16":"tag-jonquel-jones","17":"tag-kahleah-copper","18":"tag-kelsey-mitchell","19":"tag-lexie-hull","20":"tag-nneka-ogwumike","21":"tag-phoenix-mercury","22":"tag-restricted-free-agents","23":"tag-rhyne-howard","24":"tag-sophie-cunningham","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-unrestricted-free-agents","27":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}