More people than ever watch women's sports, but investment and media coverage still lag
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If you put womenâs sports on TV, people will watch. In fact, people want to watch.
That fact became more than obvious in 2020 â when womenâs sports had a banner year on television.
Last year, the National Womenâs Soccer League was the first pro team sport in the United States to return after the sports world went dark because of the COVID pandemic. By the end of the leagueâs historic season, it reported a 500% jump in TV viewership.
That same year, the Womenâs National Basketball Association completed a season inside the âwubbleâ â a season that was dedicated to making strides for social justice. The league reported a 68% increase in average regular season viewership for the 2020 season.
And the record-breaking growth carried well into 2021.
Earlier this month, the Womenâs College World Series three-game championship series between Oklahoma and Florida State averaged 1.84 million viewers on ESPN â up 15% from 2019. More people watched Game 2 of that series than the Islanders-Bruins NHL playoff game on NBCSN that same day.
This audience, experts say, has not suddenly materialized out of thin air. It has existed for as long as sports have been around and itâs one that is aching for more. And there is now a slow momentum to meet this growing demand.
âYou have an audience that is agitating for more coverage of women in sports, and womenâs sports â and you have now platforms that are developing that allow those voices to be heard,â said Jane McManus, director of the Center for Sports Communication at Marist College and a former ESPN writer. âWhat you have now is you can see people through social media saying that they are interested in womenâs sports.â
Still, despite the record growth seen by womenâs sports leagues last year, McManus said, the gains have slowly reversed as attention has reverted back to the major menâs leagues in the country. âIâm optimistic in some ways, but there are caveats,â she said.
Women in sports fight uphill battle
Womenâs sports and women in sports constantly face an uphill battle. Even at the highest levels, female athletes find themselves fighting for basic needs.
The United States Womenâs National Soccer Team â arguably the best team in the world and the obvious favorites to win Olympic gold in Tokyo â has been at odds with their employer, U.S. Soccer, over equal pay for years. The result of that dispute could lead to sweeping changes for women in the workplace.
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This past year, the national conversation during March Madness focused heavily on the glaring disparities between the menâs and womenâs NCAA basketball tournaments. The outcry began when videos surfaced on social media comparing the sole weight rack the women were given with an entire facility for the men.
"We have a cultural valuation that menâs sports are more important than womenâs sports," McManus said. "In the context of these universes that are set up by the NCAA and U.S. Soccer, it doesnât have to be that way. There could be a valuation that both of these things are valuable.
"It shows that they are reinforcing these cultural biases against women and women in sports,â she said.
These inequities hinder the momentum to grow womenâs sports.
A recent USC/Purdue University study published in March found that womenâs sports are almost entirely excluded from television news and sports highlights. The most recent version of the survey, conducted every five years since 1989, found that 95% of all television coverage â as well as the ESPN highlights show SportsCenter â focused on menâs sports in 2019. That was also true for its social media posts and in coverage by online sports newsletters.
Women investors to the rescue
Now more than ever, groups are choosing to invest in womenâs sports â and non-traditional media is taking the womenâs game by storm.
âA lot of women who have reached the top of their profession in sports â Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Elena de la Donne, and people like that â are now investing the money theyâve earned through sports back into sports,â McManus said, âwhether itâs supporting womenâs teams, supporting ventures like Just Womenâs Sports, which is about women in sports. I do think youâre going to see more investment, and thatâs actually the key.â
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In March, some of the biggest names in sports â Alex Morgan, Sue Bird, Simone Manuel and Chloe Kim â announced the creation of TOGETHXR, a sports and lifestyle media company created just for women.
In May, the popular platform Just Womenâs Sports announced it raised $3.5 million in seed fundraising.
Womenâs sports leagues and their athletes, too, are as accessible as ever to their fan base through social media. That engagement is creating opportunities that traditional media have not provided.
These advances should come as no surprise.
âIf you keep knocking at a door and no one lets you in, eventually youâre going to find ways around the door, and I think thatâs whatâs happening,â McManus said.
Melanie Anzidei is a reporter for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: anzidei@northjersey.com
Twitter: @melanieanzidei