The Josh Innes Show - WNBA's Lack Of Self Awareness

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

I want to revisit the Sophie Cunningham comments about Detroit and Cleveland. I've been to Detroit a few times. I find it comical that someone would dump on a city that is one of only 13 with the 4 major American sports leagues... Is Detroit like Midwest Philly? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Dazon. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazon, starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazon.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Rogers Stadium with Go Transit.

Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday, anywhere along the Go network. And the Weekday Group Passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online Go Pass ahead of the show at Gotransit.com slash tickets. So as I told you, I'm driving around trying to get Ross to the park and then

we're gonna go to the dog bar and I'm currently I told you I've been kind of reflective about everything the last couple of weeks knowing that you know I'm moving here in five days and you think about things that go wrong things about things I think about things that are right all that kind of shit things you enjoy. Jilly and I went to Budweiser, I guess both Christmases that we were here, I guess it would have only been two, right? Or were we here for three Christmases?

No, I guess two, 2023 and 2024 Christmas. Both years we went to see the brewery lights at Budweiser and I'm driving by the Budweiser Brewery right now. And it smells so good. Like just the smell. I don't know, I asked what that particular smell was and I don't remember. I don't know if it's like the barley or the hops or the yeast or whatever the fuck it is that we're smelling over here but it's intoxicating. Like this aroma just takes you off and like you look at this beautiful Budweiser campus You drink the fresh bush lights from the campus here

And it's just like it's awesome like there are certain things that are just really cool and this Beautiful this big beautiful brewery the big beautiful beer place. It's amazing But it's it's fucking cool man If you ever get a chance to come see it, the tour is fine. Like it's kind of half ass kind of you know, it's like, like, maybe I never did like the extensive tour, I always did kind of like the middling tour of it. But it is really cool. Like there are perks of coming

to St. Louis. And one of them is getting to see this awesome thing. It's wild to sit here and think about the fact that there was a time that this right here, this brewery that I'm looking at was the epicenter essentially of the universe. This town was built on beer. You know, and it's just, I don't know, it's cool. It's cool to think of all the history in this place.

It is cool to take the tour and see all the old buildings and stuff so it like it is a cool place to check out so if you ever get a chance to do it but the Christmas time here is amazing in this place and then you get some good fresh beer and you just it's cool you know so there's something cool about that as we continue to drive around St. Louis head to the park. Let me play a couple commercials and we will continue. On July 18th, it's the Blue Crew to the rescue. It's smurfing time. Hefty. Can you even lift

bro? Glouchy. I hate the radio. Quiet. I have no idea what he just said. And smurfette. That's how it's done boys. Smurfs. Only in theaters July 18th. I was also thinking about this thing about self-awareness and we talked about self-awareness a little while ago when we were talking about me and how I do think I possess too much self-awareness. Now you could argue that someone who tells you how self-aware they are may not be self-aware and that's an argument you could make, I suppose. But I was thinking about the self-awareness we the other day we were talking about how this Sophie Cunningham and the WNBA of the Indiana Club this lady said that that players will not want to play in

Cleveland or play in Detroit and it's just wild to me that there are groups like if you want to consider WNBA players to be a marginalized group, I guess you could because they don't get the same attention as the men's team and they don't make all that much money. And so for the sake of this argument, let's just call them a marginalized group. Okay, so the ladies are a marginalized group.

You would think that a group of people who is finally having a moment, a group of people finally getting to experience attention, finally getting some level of success, finally seeing their hard work pay off, you would think that they would possess the self-awareness to think, hey, anything that's positive is good, yet you've got a group of people who are so clueless that you've got one of these people who's now becoming one of the faces of the league, mostly because she's just hot and then you know people think she's hot, but she's one of the faces of this

league. She's one of the most recognized people in the WNBA and you've got this woman telling like two cities that essentially they suck and a bunch of women's basketball players wouldn't want to play there. Like, it's just crazy to me when you get people who are so clueless and so lack self-awareness that they say, like, it takes someone who's completely clueless to say something like that You know, can you imagine like we talked about it the other day, but like you're in a position like I don't like I don't know what kind of job I'm gonna find or what I'm gonna do But like like say there's a job in a place that like I don't want to have a job or something and then I go

And just shit on the place right out of the jump jump Like it's not gonna work out for you very well You know, I don't know just shitting on a place For no reason like it's just it reeks of like like new money, right? It reeks of the Beverly Hillbillies It reeks of you just hit a you know a million dollars on a scratch off and you don't know what to do with it. Like it reeks of you can take the the girl out of the blank but you can't take the blank out of the girl right? Like that's kind of what it reeks of and I'm fascinated and I bring this up because I still follow a bunch of things

from Detroit from when I was on the radio there. Which by the way somebody sent me a message the other day that was like man I really miss you on the radio in Detroit you were awesome in Detroit. I'm like I didn't know like, man, I really miss you on the radio in Detroit, you were awesome in Detroit. I'm like, I didn't know anybody fucking listened to me when I was on the radio in Detroit. But I'm reading some of these, I still follow some of the, like the sports kind of things from these places. And it's, a lot of them are really pissed off. Like it's kind of a Philly reaction to it.

Like, all right, you asshole. If you don't like our city, screw you. And then of course they start listing all the good things about their city and everything, which I'm all for it, right? Like you've opened up the door. But if I'm going to shit on a city and say that players wouldn't want to play there,

to me, shitting on one of the cities that I believe is one of the 13 in North America that has all four sports teams is probably not the play. Because if I'm going to be in a city, and by the way, it has all four sports teams who have all had moments, some longer moments than others. Like obviously, like the Red Wings had their giant moment from the 90s into the, you know, late first decade of the 2000s. But like the Tigers will have a couple of moments, but for the most part the Tigers are the Tigers. The

Pistons have some moments, but for the most part the Pistons are the Pistons, and the Lions are having a moment right now, but for the most part they're one of the worst franchises in the NFL in terms of wins and losses. But that is still, and even though that city has taken a knee to the dick many times that city is still one of 13 and I believe that includes Toronto one of 13 if you want to count you know Canada it is one of 13 cities that still has all four professional, the four major professional sports. Cleveland at what has three, they have baseball, basketball, football, but Detroit, let's focus on Detroit since I have a little bit of history there. I don't feel like I'm totally out of school talking about this. You look at Detroit, that is a city that has four professional sports

teams and as bad as those professional sports teams have been for much of their existence outside of like the Red Wings, for the most part, those have been some mediocre franchises. Yet, somehow, people still go to the games, yet how sometimes somehow those teams survive there. And many of those are like 100 year old franchises, right? The Red Wings have been around for this. They're celebrating their 100 years this year. I'm sure the Tigers have been around for like 150 years. The Lions are one of the OGs in the in the league. So you're talking about old

school franchises that have survived in a city that has had its issues had its the city went bankrupt. The teams aren't very good yet they continue to survive. Like it just shows a lack of awareness and it shows a lack of knowledge of certain things, right? Like educate yourself on certain things before you say dumb shit. But it just shows that you are an example of someone

who is a moron and didn't take the time to study up on things and understand the history of things because you are new money and you cut and you are in this this this moment that the WNBA is having you're in a league that most people didn't give two shits about for most of its existence and now you sit here and you want to shit on a city like Detroit you know when I look at a city like Detroit to me it's kind of like a nicer Philly and by that I mean like I think there are people that have a chip on their shoulder and I'm really seeing this when I look at the reactions. Because now in my 4U, because I've commented on this shit,

my 4U on Twitter is nothing but like Detroit people, Detroit media, Detroit fans, all shitting on Sophie Cunningham and running to the defense of the city. Very proud to be from Detroit. So it gives off a Philly vibe from that standpoint. Four major sports teams, for the most part not a ton of success in those major sports teams. Like the Eagles have had far more success than the Lions even before the Super Bowls. But like it's always been kind of the bridesmaid kind of vibe.

You'll get an occasional World Series championship. You'll get, you know, hockey will have its moment in a certain era. Basketball will have moments. They're very similar cities in that way, and they're very proud of who they are and who they represent, right? They're very proud of the fact that they're from Detroit. They're very proud of the fact that they're blue collar. And Detroit comes across to me as an actual legitimate blue collar, where like Philly wants to carry itself as blue collar. That's always been Philly's kind of MO. It's like, hey, we're blue collar. We're lunch pail guys.

And there are plenty of those guys there. But there's also like Ivy League level schools there and shit. So like it's not like it's a, it's not like, and there's a fluent people. It's not a poor city in the sense that it went bankrupt, right? So like they're not similar. Like like Philly wants to paint itself as the blue collar, whatever. Detroit to me, at least in everything I learned being on the radio there, Detroit is what it says it is.

It is blue fucking collar auto industry ice fucking cold in the winter Lake Effect snow. auto industry, ice fucking cold in the winter, lake effect snow, you gotta be tough to live there, and you deal with a lot of shitty sports. And sports are kind of your escape, and for the most part, and for most of your existence, if you're a Detroit sports fan, unless it's the Red Wings, you've watched a lot of shitty sports in your day. And they're similar to me in that that level of passion Of course the difference being that I think that the Midwest people are probably slightly less aggressive Maybe I've never like spent extended period of times in Detroit, so I don't know But I would imagine they're slightly less Hostile than Philly people but as far as the pride they feel for the area they're in, it

is very similar. So if you're going to be some chick and oh, by the way, the best part about this, like they keep coming up with things that I didn't really know. One of the best parts is like as far as the history of the WNBA goes, like Houston, I guess is like the epicenter of the WNBA in terms of championships won because one of the comments win like five. The Detroit team in the WNBA won like three championships. So now granted nobody gave a shit about the WNBA, but also some of the biggest crowds in the history of the WNBA were in Detroit. I want to say the two biggest crowds they've ever had for WNBA games were in Detroit. Can you imagine being such a fucking weasel, so uneducated, so self-serving, so just

just so oblivious to the world around you in the league that you play in to say something that stupid. Now is it going to impact her? Probably not. I mean, she plays in Indiana. By the time Detroit has a team, she'll just be showing her coups on OnlyFans for money. So it's not like, you know, this is the end all be all for this chick. So like, this is just a means to an end for her.

But still, like, I don't, like, I just, it bothers me when people are that uneducated about things. And oh, by by the way the most important factor in all of this is when you start looking at people who want to say shit like Like nobody would want to play there ma'am honest to God you're like I don't want to you know This sounds like mansplaining or whatever, but you're pretty fucking lucky. There's still a WNBA for you to play in But you're pretty fucking lucky there's still a WNBA for you to play in. If not for the fact that this league has been subsidized and carried by the NBA for as many years as it has been in what is essentially a charity case and now you're finally getting some sort of attention and you talk big shit and you're demanding where to play and all

this shit. Like you truly are lucky there is even a WNBA for you to become famous playing in. If they wanted you to play on fucking Mars, you'd be like, sign me up, put a ground control to Major Tom. Like play on fucking Mars, play on the moon. You know it's like, what is that? Oh it's a league of their own. So in a league of their own, all the dudes are off at war and they're trying to make keep baseball going. So they have ladies try out for the All-American the All-American Girls Professional Baseball

League, right? And they're trying out for the league and they show the the girls that made the team. They show them the uniforms and like Rosie O'Donnell is like, hello, that's a dress. Hello, that's a dress and like I'm not playing in that Madonna's like I'm not playing in that and then the dude comes out and is like well There's you know X number of girls that are on a train back home that would play in a bathing suit if I asked them It's like if you want to fucking play This is the uniform if you're in the WNBA and you want to play, get your ass on a fucking bus and go to Cleveland, get your ass on a fucking plane and go to Detroit.

Like fucking do it. And oh, by the way, it's not like Indiana is all that glamorous, right? You're not playing in LA. It's not the glitz and glamour. I'm not going to shit on Indianapolis because I went and I thought it was a fucking awesome town. But it's still Indiana. It's still cold in the winter. It still snows there. Oh, and oh, by the way, you have two professional sports teams there. Detroit has four major professional sports teams and the four big male sports. So, I don't know. That's been bothering me this whole time. Anyway, more to come.