Two fans showed up to a Seattle Storm game at Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday night with signs thanking Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham "for speaking up for girls." They left after Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton walked up and directed expletives at them over their signage.
The fans were teenagers.
The WNBA announced Thursday that Keaton has been suspended for five home games and fined an undisclosed amount for the confrontation during the Storm-Fever matchup on July 29. The league's statement was clinical and brief, the way these things always are when the person getting punished is on the "right" side of the culture war. The Storm issued their own statement saying they "respect the league's decision to fine and suspend co-owner Celeste Keaton" and that they "remain committed to creating a welcoming and respectful environment."
A welcoming and respectful environment. For everyone except teenage girls holding signs, apparently.
Cunningham has become something of a folk hero among women's sports fans who don't want to subject girls to sharing locker rooms with biological men or play sports against them. Outside the arena that night, supporters had gathered to promote a Washington state ballot initiative that would restrict transgender athlete participation in women's sports. The signs the teens carried weren't profane. They weren't threatening. They thanked a player for "speaking up for girls." That was enough to send a team co-owner into a profanity-laced confrontation with minors.
Cunningham responded on social media with a message that managed to be more mature than anything the Storm's ownership produced. "I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY," she wrote. "You can disagree and still be kind." She called the incident "Truly embarrassing of the co-owner."
She's right. It is embarrassing. A grown woman who co-owns a professional sports franchise decided the appropriate response to teenagers holding polite signs was to curse them out in a public arena. That's not passion. That's not advocacy. That's a billionaire-class tantrum directed at kids who committed the sin of having an opinion.
Storm majority owner Ginny Gilder followed up with the predictable corporate language about being "committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect." Storm coach Sonia Raman added that "Seattle and this organization... we always want to be an area where people feel welcome."
Five games. That's the price for a WNBA co-owner verbally attacking teenage fans. For context, players have gotten longer suspensions for hard fouls. The league had a chance to send a message that ownership-level intimidation of fans — minors, no less — is unacceptable. Instead they sent a memo.
