Put ’em in, coach
Setting new attendance and viewership records
Source: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
Numbers never lie — more people are watching women’s sports in-person and on TV than ever before.
WNBA: An average of 627K viewers tuned into regular-season games on ABC last year, making it the league’s highest-viewed regular season on the network in 11 years. The Aces’ championship-clinching performance in the 2023 Finals became the most-watched Game 4 on record, with an average of 889K viewers, a 124% increase from Game 4 in 2022.
NCAA basketball: The 2023 title game between Iowa and LSU pulled in a whopping 9.9M (!!!) viewers, making it the most-watched college basketball game on ESPN platforms, men’s or women’s, ever. And don’t be surprised if a new record is set this year.
2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup: The final between England and Spain racked up 38.4M viewing hours in Britain, making it their most-watched women’s sports event of the year. WWC 2023 also set a new attendance record with nearly 2M fans watching in-person from Australia and New Zealand, including 75,784 folks who attended the final. Fan-footy-tastic.
PWHL: 2.9M Canadians tuned in to watch…
Money, money, money
Source: Presley Ann/Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret
Six female athletes made at least $10M in 2023 and the top 15 highest-paid raked in a collective $174.5M in prize money and endorsements. Seven of the top 10 play tennis — which comes as no surprise given the sport has long led the way in pay equity.
2023 U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff topped the list for the first time, cashing in $22.7M, followed by fellow tennis star Iga Świątek ($21.9M) and 20-year-old skier Eileen Gu ($20M).
Name, image and likeness (NIL) deals — which allowed amateur athletes in the U.S. to cash in on endorsement deals for the first time beginning in July 2021 — have made…
The road ahead
Source: Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images
While we take today to celebrate, we know the work is far from over. Women still receive approximately 5% of traditional sports media coverage and account for only about 14% of sports reporters (a primary reason we do what we do!).
Also alarming? Girls — especially Black girls — drop out of sports at a higher rate than boys. And these are only a handful of the issue areas that need to be tackled.
Another huge concern are the attacks on the trans sports community, specifically trans girls and women. Twenty-four states have now passed laws barring transgender girls and women from competing in sports aligning with their gender identity.
Last year, the so-called “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” was reintroduced, which would implement a federal ban on transgender and intersex girls and women participating in sports if passed. Terrifying.
Clearly, there’s still much progress to be made. Let the incredible milestones and moments fuel us as we march on.
