The Chicago Sky needed a Sydney Taylor pull-up three with 1.6 seconds left to survive a 21-point collapse and beat the Golden State Valkyries 73-70 at Wintrust Arena on Friday night. The finish was not what Natasha Cloud wanted to talk about afterwards.
Midway through the third quarter, play was interrupted when multiple sex toys were thrown onto the floor and arena staff were sent out to clear them while players stood and waited. It was the second such disruption on consecutive nights in the WNBA, and Cloud — who scored 17 points in the win — used her post-game media session to address the people responsible directly.
“That hate is unwarranted,” Cloud said, calling the behaviour weird and adding that it “says more about the internal struggles of that individual” than about the league. “The men that are throwing it, it shows that you are weak. Like, extremely weak. And it says a lot about how you feel about women.” She also delivered a blunter verdict: “Y’all lame as [expletive].”
Two nights, two arenas, one recycled stunt
Thursday’s game in Los Angeles, where the Atlanta Dream beat the Sparks 124-88, was halted for the same reason. A male spectator was detained by arena security, cited by police and released, and was handed an indefinite ban covering WNBA and NBA events. He was identified in part because Angel Reese — traded from Chicago to Atlanta in the offseason for first-round picks in 2027 and 2028 — spotted the throw from the bench and pointed him out to officials.
Chicago’s response has been slower. The Sky said they are reviewing security camera footage to identify whoever was responsible on Friday; no arrest had been announced by Saturday. The distinction matters, because the league’s stated penalty structure only works if the person is caught. WNBA policy is that any fan who intentionally throws an object onto the court is immediately ejected, receives a minimum one-year ban, and is subject to arrest and prosecution by local authorities.
A 2025 problem the league thought it had closed
None of this is new. The trend began on 29 July 2025, when a neon green sex toy landed on the floor during a Dream–Valkyries game in Atlanta, and it was amplified by cryptocurrency promoters who claimed credit for the stunt as a marketing device. At least six games were disrupted across the 2025 season, and the consequences escalated quickly:
- Delbert Carver, 23, was arrested over the 29 July throw at the Dream–Valkyries game in Atlanta.
- Kaden Lopez, 18, of Arizona was arrested after police said he threw an object into the crowd during a Phoenix Mercury–Connecticut Sun game.
- Charles Burgess, 32, of Dayton, Ohio, was charged with two counts of assault after an object thrown at the Dallas Wings–New York Liberty game on 5 August struck a 12-year-old girl.
That last case is the one the league keeps citing, and it is why the WNBA’s public position is framed around safety rather than embarrassment: objects thrown onto the court or into the seating bowl, the league has said, pose a risk to players, officials and fans. A hard object arriving unannounced during live play is an ankle injury waiting to happen for an athlete moving at speed, and Friday’s stoppage came with the Sky protecting a lead that eventually evaporated.
What happens next
The immediate test is whether Chicago’s footage review produces a name. A one-year ban applied to an unidentified person is not a deterrent, and the pattern of the past 13 months suggests copycats respond to the absence of consequences rather than the presence of policy. Teams that acted fastest in 2025 — with in-arena detention followed by criminal referral — saw the fewest repeat incidents at their venues.
The broader issue is that the WNBA is now large enough to attract this kind of attention-seeking. Bigger crowds, national broadcast windows and an expansion-era roster of franchises mean any arena stunt travels within minutes. Cloud’s argument was that the throwers are not chasing virality alone but taking aim at women’s sport specifically, and her framing — weak, weird, revealing — was pointed for that reason.
Chicago’s win was their third in a row, a season high, and Taylor’s shot was the sort of moment the Sky have been short of. Instead, the conversation returned to a stunt the league spent a year trying to kill. Whether that changes depends less on what players say afterwards and more on what arena security does in the next 48 hours.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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