Sue Bird, Cheryl Miller urge WNBA to ‘stand up for their brand’ against culture war critics

Whatever hope there was of culture-war critics taking a week off in their narrative battle against the WNBA was dashed the moment DiJonai Carrington’s elbow made contact with Sophie Cunningham’s head on Saturday.

The Indiana Fever-Chicago Sky game ended up providing several moments that critics and narrative drivers latched onto, including Carrington’s flagrant foul, her social media posts after being ejected, a dubious technical foul called (and later rescinded) on Caitlin Clark that would have led to a one-game suspension, and how Fever head coach Stephanie White discussed all of it afterward.

As social media and right-wing circles lit up with anger and hot takes about the one WNBA game they watched this week, women’s basketball legends Sue Bird and Cheryl Miller offered some perspective from those who have followed the sport and league for decades.

During halftime of the Dallas Wings-Minnesota Lynx matchup, the NBC/Peacock analysts said the league has to do a better job of protecting itself and its players from outside narratives.

Cheryl Miller & Sue Bird’s thoughts on DiJonai Carrington’s flagrant foul last night and the narratives being pushed: pic.twitter.com/9efyg8OqOo

— Kyle Ingram (@SnapshotKyle) August 9, 2026

“I wanna see that same leadership during the collective bargaining agreement and how they rallied around the brand, the WNBA, and that’s what I wanna see. I want them to do the same things that they did during that time and stand up for their brand,” said Miller. “This is our brand, and not watch a bunch of outsiders hijack the league and our narrative.”

“I do think that there are people trying to leverage our league for their own personal gain,” added Bird. “And in my experience as a player, particularly in 2020, what I learned is you have tough conversations behind closed doors. You strategize, and that’s how you figure out how to, for lack of a better [word,] defend yourselves and defend what this league has built. That requires leadership, and really on all levels, from the players, from the union, from the league, you name it, us who are covering the game. It requires that leadership.”

Host Maria Taylor said she appreciated that Bird brought up 2020, when the players dedicated to Breonna Taylor and vocally campaigned against then-Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler, as proof that “it’s not new for WNBA players to stand up for social issues, whether it be race, pay equity, sexuality.”

“It seems as though every flagrant foul, every incident, every ejection has now become an indictment on the league, and it’s become a cause for some social issue,” Taylor added. “It’s hard to see these wonderful players turn into ammunition for a culture war that is existing in real time.”