By Michael Phillips | Sports & Whatever | WNBA
Somewhere in the last several weeks, “a dildo got thrown on the court” stopped being news and started being a running bit. The latest one hit the floor during a Mystics-Mercury game, and a viral account pegged it as the 11th — at this point, who’s even counting? Certainly not the WNBA, which still doesn’t have an official public tally, because acknowledging a number would mean acknowledging a pattern, and acknowledging a pattern would mean admitting the league hasn’t solved this.
Let’s be clear about what “this” actually is. It started as a stunt — a crypto group behind a meme coin literally called Green Dildo Coin took credit for some of the early throws, treating a women’s professional sports league as a billboard for a joke about their token price. That’s not edgy. That’s someone deciding a women’s game is the appropriate place to stage a prank they wouldn’t dream of pulling at an NBA Finals game. And now, more than a year and two seasons later, it’s still happening. Regularly. Predictably. To the point where a viral account can slap a number on it and nobody blinks.
“That’s not edgy. That’s someone deciding a women’s game is the appropriate place to stage a prank they wouldn’t dream of pulling at an NBA Finals game.”
The league’s response, every time, is the same statement about safety and prosecution. Fair enough — a few people have actually been arrested. Eighteen-year-old Kaden Lopez was arrested after a Phoenix incident, and 23-year-old Delbert Carver was arrested in Georgia. But arrests after the fact don’t answer the real question, which is why this keeps happening at WNBA games specifically, over and over, while it doesn’t happen anywhere else in pro sports. The answer isn’t complicated. It’s contempt, dressed up as a joke, and it’s been allowed to become a recurring bit because the league has treated each incident as an isolated PR problem instead of what it actually is: a pattern of people deciding women playing basketball is something to be mocked rather than watched.
“It’s contempt, dressed up as a joke.”
And that’s the part that should actually worry the WNBA’s business people, not just its security staff. Every time this happens, it becomes the highlight — not a fourth-quarter comeback, not a career night from A’ja Wilson or Paige Bueckers, but a sex toy on the hardwood and a bunch of jokes on X. That’s what casual fans see. That’s what gets clipped, reposted, and laughed at by people who couldn’t name five players in the league. The players show up and play a real game. The league keeps getting a punchline stapled to the box score.
“The players show up and play a real game. The league keeps getting a punchline stapled to the box score.”
At some point, “we’re working with law enforcement” stops being an adequate answer to a problem that’s now in double digits and still climbing. The WNBA doesn’t need a tenth statement. It needs the pattern to actually end — and it needs to stop treating each new incident like a surprise when everyone in the building, including the league office, clearly expects the next one.
“The WNBA doesn’t need a tenth statement. It needs the pattern to actually end.”
Sports & Whatever 
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