Caitlin Clark Shotgunning Drinks and Sophie Cunningham Twerking Give Meaning to an Otherwise Meaningless In-Season Tournament
This is one of those "TIL" situations in which I, as a pure WNBA bandwagon fan, found out they have one of those gimmicky in-season tournaments:
Grok AI - The WNBA Commissioner's Cup is an annual in-season tournament held by the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), typically from early June to mid-July. Sponsored by Coinbase, it features a series of games where each of the league's 12 teams plays one game against each in-conference opponent—five games for Eastern Conference teams and six for Western Conference teams. These games count toward the regular season standings. The team with the best record in Cup games from each conference advances to the Commissioner's Cup Championship, a single game to determine the winner.
The tournament offers a prize pool for players, with the 2025 champions, the Indiana Fever, splitting $500,000, and each player on the winning team receiving about $30,000. Runners-up earn around $10,000 each. Additionally, teams compete for charitable contributions, with the winning team directing funds to a chosen community organization. For example, in 2025, the Fever supported Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana. The Cup combines competitive play, financial incentives, and social impact, with the championship game rotating host sites based on the best Cup record.
Which is fair enough. As much as this concept might feel way out of place in other leagues, an admission that the regular season is way too long and largely meaningless so they have to concoct artificial ways to gin up fake excitement for marketing purposes, it actually makes perfect sense in the WNBA, which is only now catching on and needs all the headlines it can produce.
Moreover, the extra money actually does make a difference to these players. And the tie-ins to benefit local worthy causes makes it a pure good.
But it's the way that two of the stars who have been putting the league on the map reacted to winning the Cup is what made it a pure great:
First there was All Star Captain and People's Champion Caitlin Clark proving she can pound (seltzers) with the best of them:
Then Sophie Cunningham's physical expression of unbridled joy:
TMZ - Sophie Cunningham must be a Juvenile fan … 'cause the Indiana Fever guard was backin' that ass up after her squad won the WNBA Commissioner's Cup!! …
It was the first Commish's Cup win for the Fever … and the champs certainly celebrated like it -- live streaming the whole bash on social media.
Cunningham -- who scored 13 points -- got in front of her teammate's Instagram Live while they celebrated … and bent over to shake her booty for the fans.
This is how you grow a league. With your players just being their authentic selves. Enjoying themselves the way the fans are supposed to enjoy watching them. Chugging beers low carb alcoholic beverages. Shaking what God gave them. Enjoying the everliving shit out of celebrating with their teammates in a locker room wrapped in plastic sheets. Putting some much needed money in their accounts. Helping to support fans in need. Simply having a great time being better at their jobs than everyone else.
Compare this reaction to the OKC Thunder winning an NBA fricking title:
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Watch the Fever's reaction to an in-season tournament win and the NBA champions' reaction to bringing an actual banner to their city for the first time ever, and tell me which basketball league is on the rise. I'm not for one hot second suggesting the women's game will ever put a dent in the men's. Just that they're capturing the public's imagination for the first time. And that's a good thing:
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