Fever's Sophie Cunningham Fined $1,500 by WNBA for Criticizing Refs in Podcast Video

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham wrote another check to the WNBA office for critical comments she made about the league's officiating.

Cunningham said on her Show Me Something podcast that she was fined $1,500, thanks to some of her remarks in the show's premiere.

"If I was a ref, I know I would mess up all the time," she said in that episode (via Matthew Glenesk of the Indianapolis Star). "Like, I'm not saying that your job is easy, but when it is a simple call right in front of your face multiple times, what are you doing? What are you doing? ... They're just so inconsistent, like that's one thing."

Cunningham previous drew a $500 fine for a video she posted to social media. Using the lyrics from Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild," she cited a number of negative adjectives to describe WNBA referees.

The seventh-year veteran is far from the only player to voice her displeasure with the state of officiating, and this has been a perceived issue for years.

Monty McCutchen, who oversees referee training and development across the NBA's family of leagues, told Ira Gorawara of the Los Angeles Times he's "very pleased with the work this year."

It's not as though the WNBA is unique in having players dissatisfied with the refs, either.

Still, Gorawara pointed to some structural aspects that speak to the W specifically. There's no central replay center like the NBA's in Secaucus, New Jersey, and referees who work in the WNBA have jobs in the college game or NBA G League, too.

“You're working three very different kinds of basketball," said Jacob Tingle, director of sport management at Trinity University who is part of a research network for sports referees. "The reason the NBA or MLB works is because that’s all you do — you're working the same kind of game only."

There are no shortage of topics for WNBA players to tackle in the next collective bargaining agreement. Maybe the amount of resources devoted to officiating is something they can discuss with league owners.