Los Angeles Sparks forward Dearica Hamby says someone sent a racist text message directly to her personal phone number two days after she was ejected from an August 22 game against the Connecticut Sun. The message included a racial slur, the phrase “They should put you in a zoo. Animal,” and a monkey emoji, sent to a number Hamby had not saved in her contacts.
Hamby shared a screenshot of the message on social media in late August and asked her followers whether anyone recognized the phone number attached to it, according to Cleveland.com. Social media users quickly reverse-searched the number and connected it to an employee at Acclaro Medical, a Rhode Island-based medical technology company, as reported by Larry Brown Sports. Hamby later posted the sender's phone number on X in an effort to identify him publicly.
Acclaro Medical suspended the employee on August 25 while it conducted an internal investigation, then officially terminated him on September 1. The company confirmed the individual was no longer employed there and said the alleged conduct did not reflect its values or standards, adding that it condemns racism, harassment, hate speech and discrimination. Yahoo! Sports reported that the termination followed the investigation prompted directly by Hamby's public disclosure of the screenshot.
WNBA Issues Permanent Ban
In early September, the WNBA confirmed that the individual who sent the message to Hamby has been permanently banned from attending all WNBA games and league events. The league condemned the abuse directed at Hamby and expressed its support for her, according to the same account cited by Essentially Sports. The case has also raised questions about how the sender obtained Hamby's personal contact information in the first place, a detail that remains unresolved.
Hamby has publicly said that losing a job is not a sufficient consequence for sending abusive messages to a player's personal phone, and she has called for legal charges against people who send such threats directly, according to Los Angeles News Today. She raised the issue while preparing for the Sparks' late-season games. Sporting News reported that the incident has prompted broader discussion about player safety and accountability within the league.
A Pattern of Fan Harassment Across the League
Hamby's case echoes an incident from July, when Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray posted a screenshot of a racist Instagram direct message she received after a game against the Indiana Fever. Hilton Grand Vacations terminated the employee responsible, according to CBS News, and Gray publicly condemned the abuse and the pressure placed on athletes. Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas has also spoken out about racist messages, threats and online abuse she has received, and Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark publicly condemned the harassment directed at Thomas after an on-court foul in July, per Sportsnet.ca.
The WNBA launched its “No Space for Hate” platform in May 2025, introducing AI-powered monitoring software to detect hateful online comments alongside enhanced physical security and player mental health resources, per WNBA.com. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert created the policy to address rising digital vitriol as the league's popularity grew. Yet during a July meeting between league leadership and the players' union, officials revealed that only 42 of the WNBA's 181 players were actively using the league's digital security and social media monitoring tools, according to prior Hoodline reporting, with union leaders pushing for clearer communication about how to access those protections.
Betting Boom Tied to Rising Threats
A separate investigation from August 2025 found that the WNBA's rapid expansion of official sports betting partnerships, now covering seven sportsbooks, has contributed to a noticeable surge in online threats and harassment directed at players from disgruntled gamblors, according to The Washington Post. Several top sportsbooks reported that wagering on WNBA games doubled year-over-year during that stretch, a structural pressure that has compounded the harassment players already face from bigoted fans.
Hamby's case also arrives against the backdrop of her own history of standing up to institutional power. In December 2025, Hamby and her former team, the Las Vegas Aces, mutually agreed to dismiss a federal pregnancy discrimination lawsuit she had filed in August 2024 alleging she was unlawfully traded due to her pregnancy, according to Front Office Sports. A federal judge had previously dismissed the WNBA itself as a co-defendant in that case in May 2025.
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