Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom is banned from Wintrust Arena after he was removed from the Chicago Sky's final regular-season game against the Indiana Fever, Sky owner Michael Alter told reporters on Tuesday, Aug. 25.
Neither the Chicago Sky or the WNBA have responded to USA TODAY Sports' request for comment. The WNBA has not announced plans to keep Kanter Freedom from attending future games at other venues.
Alter said the team learned nearly five hours before tipoff of the game on Sunday, Aug. 23, that Kanter would be in attendance via a text from the former player's manager to Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca. Alter did not know where Kanter would be seated, he said.
Alter told reporters his “one regret” was that he chose not to inform
Sky players that Kanter would be in attendance because he felt it was too close to game time.
“It was pretty clear to us that his purpose of coming here was trying to be provocative and just see how much attention he could get,” Alter said.
Kanter Freedom and former NBA player Royce White inserted themselves into the conversation around transgender athlete participation in women's sports on Aug. 7, fanning flames that began intensifying when Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said young girls playing sports "shouldn't have to go against biological men."
A transgender woman has never played in the WNBA, but the league has become a lightning rod for the topic after comments made by Cunningham were published in an ESPN storyon July 21.
Legislation passed in 27 states barring transgender girls and women from participating in women's sports is aimed at a small portion of the population — 1% of people aged 13 and over in the U.S. identify as transgender, according to a 2025 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law.
The Human Rights Campaign reported in 2023 that 19% of transgender youth nationwide were playing sports, including fewer than 1,300 who played sports in school.
Kanter Freedom, the No. 3 pick by the Utah Jazz in the 2011 NBA draft, was sitting courtside in a black T-shirt that said: "WOMAN noun. adult human female." Sky guard Natasha Cloud walked toward Kanter Freedom during a timeout and shouted at him. Kanter Freedom, standing with his arms outstretched, stepped onto the court and past photographers before security intervened.
"I just got kicked out of a @WNBA game for supporting WOMEN!" Kanter Freedom wrote on social media after the incident. "Let that sink in, AMERICA!"
Alter said he spoke to several people seated next to Kanter Freedom at the game, who confirmed that he started the dialogue with Cloud.
“He began to chirp with her sometime in the third quarter. I would characterize it as trash talking, nothing personal," Alter said. "Basketball-related, but enough to get her attention and to engage her, and in my opinion, to try to provoke her.”
Alter also spoke against the idea that Kanter Freedom was blameless in the situation.
“He portrays as this victimless person who did nothing, said nothing. Just wearing a T-shirt," Alter said. "We have five different security authorities that all agreed very quickly to throw him out because he made himself into a threat."
Kanter's ban will stand unless sometime in the future, "he's able to prove to us that he's able to abide by our rules without being a potential threat," Alter said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Enes Kanter Freedom banned from Chicago Sky home games, owner says
