The WNBA appears to have no answer for the dildos that continue to be heaved onto courts across the league. 

Two dildos were thrown onto the court in Chicago late Thursday night, bringing the total number of dildos that have reached WNBA courts to at least five. 

The first was at Gateway Center Arena, where the Atlanta Dream play, on July 29. The next incident happened during the Chicago Sky’s game against the Golden State Valkyries on Aug. 1 at Wintrust Arena. On Aug. 5 a dildo reached the court during the Los Angeles Sparks game against the Indiana Fever at Crypto.com Arena, hitting the leg of Fever guard Sophie Cunningham. 

There have been at least three other incidents of dildos being thrown at WNBA games, including at Barclays Center and the PHX Arena in Phoenix, but in those cases they did not reach the court. 

Two men have been arrested, 23-year-old Delbert Carver in Georgia and 18-year-old Kaden Lopez in Phoenix.

Carver has been charged with criminal trespassing, public indecency, and disorderly conduct, while Lopez was charged with disorderly conduct, assault, and public display of explicit sexual material. 

Carver is out on bond, and his case is listed as pending in Clayton County. According to court documents, there is a preliminary hearing scheduled for Lopez on Aug. 25. 

The cryptocurrency promoters who say they’re behind many of the incidents said Lopez was one of them, but Carver was not. Front Office Sports asked whether they were responsible for Thursday night’s Chicago incident, and they responded, “I think it was Trump,” along with the cry-laughing emoji and a meme Donald Trump Jr. shared of his father throwing a dildo from the White House roof.

The New York Liberty are working with the New York Police Department to investigate an incident at Tuesday night’s game against the Dallas Wings in which a dildo was apparently thrown. A video posted to social media showed it did not reach the court, but got close, surprising a fan sitting near the visiting tunnel.

The league and 12 of its 13 teams either did not respond or declined to comment when asked what measures it was taking to prevent repeat incidents. 

“The safety of everyone at our games is our top priority,” the Las Vegas Aces said Friday in a statement to FOS. “We work closely with the league and arena security to ensure a safe and respectful environment and will continue to do so.”

The league has previously said that any fan throwing an object onto the court will face an automatic one-year ban.

“The safety and well-being of everyone in our arenas is a top priority for our league,” the league office said in a statement on Aug. 2. “Objects of any kind thrown onto the court or in the seating area can pose a safety risk for players, game officials, and fans.” 

A spokesperson for the Women’s National Basketball Players Association shared a statement from union executive director Terri Jackson that said the league is investigating the issue. 

“Upon our request for an update, the league advised the players’ union that it was investigating claims that individuals were being incentivized to carry out these unsafe stunts,” Jackson said. 

“Incentivized” may be referring to the crypto coin some throwers are promoting, or the fact that Polymarket has offered prediction markets on whether dildos will be thrown at particular games. Polymarket has not responded to questions about whether it would void bets from anyone found to have thrown the objects themselves; it is technically not legal to use in the United States, although it is accessible through a VPN.

The WNBA has 10 games slated between Friday and Sunday. 

Canada witnessed a special sports story Thursday: 18-year-old Toronto native Victoria Mboko defeated Naomi Osaka to win the Canadian Open. 

It’s the first WTA 1000 tournament win for Mboko, who was born in the U.S. but moved to Canada when she was 2 months old. The win comes with a $752,275 prize, which nearly triples her career earnings. Here are Mboko’s current career earnings: 

• Before 2025 Canadian Open: $458,001
• After 2025 Canadian Open: $1,210,276 (164% increase)

The win will likely lead to Mboko receiving a seed in the US Open in less than three weeks, the first time she will be seeded in a Grand Slam. Mboko entered Montreal at world No. 85, but the 1,000 ranking points she will receive for the win will likely put her into the top 25, right behind Osaka. Earlier this year, Mboko advanced through the qualifiers at Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, even making it to the third round in France.

Osaka, 27, took home $391,600 for her runner-up finish, lifting her career earnings above $23 million. It’s the most she’s won at a single tournament since April 2022, when she finished second at the Miami Open. Despite the loss, she is also expected to be seeded at the US Open following her performance at the Canadian Open. The four-time Grand Slam champion took a 15-month break in 2022 following the birth of her daughter.

The Cincinnati Open, which started its round of 128 on Thursday, is the final WTA 1000 tournament before the US Open kicks off Aug. 24. That’s the same day the documentary Naomi Osaka: The Second Set premieres on Tubi.

Big Win for Shelton

On the men’s side, Ben Shelton dug himself out of a hole to beat Karen Khachanov on Thursday night for his first ATP Masters 1000 trophy, marking the biggest win of his career. The men’s prize is a bit higher than the women’s. Shelton gets $1,124,380 for his win, pushing his career earnings past the $9 million mark. The victory propelled him to No. 6 in the global rankings, passing Novak Djokovic.

Shelton, 22, has found success at Grand Slams, reaching the semifinals at the US Open in 2023 and Australian Open in January, but he has struggled to breach the duopoly of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. (Those players took the week off before Cincinnati.) His win Thursday makes him the youngest American man to win a Masters title since Andy Roddick in 2004, who during his career faced a similar dilemma of dominance in majors by Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer.

Boise State, Colorado State, and Utah State updated a complaint in a lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference on Thursday, claiming the league withheld millions of dollars from member schools and misled them about the addition of Grand Canyon University.

All three schools are leaving the MWC for the Pac-12 as part of a massive wave of conference realignment on the West Coast in recent years. The Pac-12 nearly disintegrated as all but two teams departed for other Power 4 conferences with more lucrative TV deals. The remaining Pac-12 schools, Oregon State and Washington State, will soon be joined by a new crew heavily made up of teams from the Mountain West.

The updated complaint added MWC commissioner Gloria Nevarez as a defendant. The suit says the conference and Nevarez have withheld tens of millions of dollars from Boise State’s College Football Playoff payouts, travel reimbursements, and NCAA distributions for financial aid, academic support, and athlete welfare. The MWC wants to charge each departing member at least $19 million in exit fees, which the schools say is unlawful. (The Mountain West is also suing the Pac-12 for $55 million for poaching its schools.)

A spokesperson for the MWC declined to comment on the updated complaint, instead referring to a statement issued last week. “The Mountain West is prepared to respond to whatever assertions may be included in the Second Amended Complaint,” the conference said. “We remain confident in our legal position, which we will vigorously defend.”

The MWC also said it is “inconsistent and unjust” for the departing schools to try to skirt their exit fees when they “sought to enforce” them against San Diego State in 2023 when the Aztecs considered leaving.

Another Grand Problem

The other issue raised in the new complaint is that of Grand Canyon University, which the MWC announced in June would join the conference this fall. The trio of lawsuit complainants say Nevarez repeatedly told them Grand Canyon wouldn’t join immediately, then after the schools said they would leave for the Pac-12 (subsequently giving up their voting rights), the Mountain West accepted the Antelopes weeks later. 

The schools say this could cost them millions of dollars between travel budgets, conference seeding and payouts, and NCAA tournament bids.

Nevarez last month pushed back against these claims, telling The Athletic: “When you give your notice [to leave], you give up your board seat and your vote. It’s Conference 101.”