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One of the biggest stories in women’s basketball this season (especially among the Indiana Fever) was Sophie Cunningham’s rise to superstardom.
While Cunningham cultivated a solid fan base during her first six WNBA seasons, her being traded to the Fever last offseason presented a great opportunity for her to capitalize on Indiana becoming the league’s most popular team after they drafted Caitlin Clark in 2024.
And Cunningham wasted no time becoming beloved among the Fever’s fan base, most notably by the way she came to Clark’s defense by throwing Connecticut Sun guard Jacy Sheldon to the ground a quarter after Sheldon shoved Clark during a June 17 game.
This skyrocketed Cunningham’s notoriety for better and for worse, as women’s basketball fans were divided over whether this move from Cunningham deserved acclaim or disdain. Cunningham didn’t seem to care either way, as she leaned into this polarizing moniker and became one of the most talked-about figures in the sport, regardless of whether this talk was positive or negative.
Sophie Cunningham Becomes Most Searched Women’s Athlete in 2025
While Caitlin Clark is still undoubtedly the biggest star in women’s basketball and arguably the biggest women’s sports star on the planet right now, there’s no question her stardom took a hit because of her injury-plagued 2025 WNBA season, which limited her to playing in 13 games.
However, Cunningham seemed to capitalize on this, at least as it pertains to her Google search volume.
Google’s annual “Year in Search” was recently released and showed the 10 most-searched athletes in the U.S. Cunningham came in at No. 7, and was the only women’s athlete in the top 10.
This is especially fascinating given what last year’s Google “Year in Search” looked like. In fact, Caitlin Clark had the same No. 7 spot that Cunningham assumed last year, which shows that Cunningham eclipsed her in terms of search volume in 2025.
Unlike Cunningham, Clark was not the most-searched women’s athlete last year. That distinction belonged to controversial Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, who was No. 3 on the list. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was No. 3.
This makes sense, given that 2024 was an Olympic year (Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles was also on the list, behind Clark at No. 9).
This is not to suggest that Cunningham is now a bigger superstar than Clark, as Google search metrics can’t indicate that. But this does show that Cunningham’s stardom is trending massively upward.
