Why is one WNBA team calling in national security experts?

Natasha Cloud of the Chicago Sky looks on prior to the game against the Indiana Fever at Wintrust Arena on Aug. 23 in Chicago. Michael Reaves/Getty Images hide caption

When Nadia Rawlinson came to be a co-owner of the Chicago Sky, Chicago's WNBA franchise, in 2023, she said her corporate career made her empathetic to the experiences of many players on the team.

"I'm an African-American woman who has been an executive in the private sector for my entire career [and] recently came into sports ownership about four or five years ago," said Rawlinson, who is also chairman of the team. "And so just being a 'lonely only' in the worlds that I'm in and excelling at the highest levels in corporate America and in sitting in public and private boardrooms, I instinctually understand that experience."

That background, Rawlinson said, also meant she understood at a personal level what her players were going through when they started to become targets of ugly, and sometimes frightening, online abuse.

"When our players were telling us this is what they're seeing, I believed them because it was very much related to how I experience my own life," she said.

As the WNBA heads into the final weeks of its regular season, outsiders continue to bombard the league with stunts aimed at inflaming division over culture war issues .

The soaring popularity in women's basketball in recent years has made it an alluring platform for bad faith actors to raise their personal profiles and stoke political tensions. Increasingly, players across the league have raised the alarm that they have been inundated with targeted abuse, harassment and threats – both online and offline. The WNBA has taken some measures, such as launching a " No Space for Hate " campaign in 2025 and offering players an AI-driven service that deletes toxic social media comments. But the Chicago Sky is taking its protective measures a step further — by enlisting help from national security experts.

"It's just become a new world that we have to operate in, that we need to figure out, how do we combat this level of abuse and harassment," said Rawlinson.