Las Vegas concerns: WNBA star, podcast host pan city

Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham and her podcast co-host West Wilson dished about whether they liked Las Vegas amid growing concern that the city has lost its luster.

Cunningham and Wilson dove into a conversation after touching on reigning WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, of the Las Vegas Aces. Cunningham asked her co-host whether he was a fan of Vegas. He said he wasn’t and revealed he lived there for a year when he was with Bleacher Report.

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Concerns have grown about Las Vegas’ decline. (iStock)

“I don’t like Vegas,” Cunningham said on the “Show Me Something” podcast. “When people are like, ‘Oh, Vegas!’ I’m like, ah s—.”

Wilson suggested he was creeped out with some of the visitors.

“I would leave work at like 10 p.m. (from Caesars Palace) and you know how you kind of just clock people when you’re leaving, and you’re by yourself and listening to music? I’d come back in the morning, like 9 a.m., same people, same chairs … It’s like a sad city,” he said.

Cunningham has been in the WNBA for a few years, and her travels, especially when she was with the Phoenix Mercury, brought her to Las Vegas to play the Aces several times.

“Every time that I’m there, there’s just that smell Vegas has, and I have to wash everything. It’s just like that smell,” she said.

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, #8, reacts against the Phoenix Mercury during an WNBA game at PHX Arena in Phoenix on Aug. 7, 2025. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)

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Cunningham added that people she’s talked to enjoyed the suburbs around the city more than what’s happening on the Las Vegas Strip. “Everyone that lives in Vegas, like off the strip and in the suburbs, everyone says it’s awesome. But I just never experienced that so I’m just like eh. But everyone loves it,” she said.

The narrative about Las Vegas over the last few weeks has been that the city is “dead” for different reasons – the economy, tariffs and just being uninteresting.

However, Circa CEO Derek Stevens expressed optimism to Fox News Digital earlier this week that things will turn around for the city over the next six months.

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, #8, reacts to a call from the referee on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025 during the game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. (Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

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“I think in six months, I would believe that Vegas tourism and our economy overall will be in a much better place,” he said.

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