Skip to main content
Join Now

Sophie Cunningham on WNBA expansion: 'I don't know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or Cleveland'

Chandler Vesselsby: Chandler Vessels07/01/25ChandlerVessels
sophie cunningham
Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

The cities of Detroit and Cleveland caught a couple strays from Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham after being selected as destinations for future WNBA expansion teams. According to Cunningham, she doesn’t believe most players in the league would want to play in there.

She argued that the WNBA should have taken the players’ opinion more into consideration when choosing expansion cities. Cunningham listed Miami, Nashville and Kansas City as options that she would have picked. You can view her full quote below.

“You want to listen to your players, too,” she said. “Where do they want to play? Where are they going to get excited to play and draw fans? I do think that Miami would have been a great one. Everyone loves Florida. Nashville is an amazing city. Kansas City, amazing opportunity. There’s a huge arena downtown that no one’s using. I think the women’s soccer league is showing that people draw.

“So I’m not so sure what the thought process is there. But at the end of the day, you also want to make sure that you’re not expanding our league too fast. I think that’s also another thing that you don’t want teams to totally dominate and then have teams that aren’t. So I just think it’s kind of a hard decision-making situation. But man, I don’t know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or (Cleveland).”

The WNBA is currently at 13 teams but set to expand to 18 over the next five years. Toronto and Portland were already announced as expansion cities for the 2026 season. Cleveland will join in 2028, then Detroit in 2029 followed by Philadelphia in 2030.

Both Detroit and Cleveland had WNBA teams in the past. The Detroit Shock existed from 1998-2009 and won three championships during that span (2003, 2006 and 2008). They set a single-game attendance record at the time when 22,076 fans showed up to Game 3 of the 2003 WNBA Finals.

The Cleveland Rockers were a more short-lived franchise, lasting from 1997-2003. The ownership group of Dan Gilbert, the owner fo the Cleveland Cavaliers, will run the new team.

Overall, it’s a big move for the league, which has seen tremendous growth and increased fan interest over the past couple of seasons. Perhaps if it continues that trend, there could be opportunity to bring more cities like a Miami or Kansas City into the mix down the road.