Women’s Sports Are Trending (Again)
The spotlight is on women this month, so what better time to shine a light on the recent trends in women’s athletics?
Female athletes are hustling when it comes to social media.
We wrote about the superiority of female athletes and social media back in November 2022, but it is worth repeating. Female athletes engage in social media 19.6% more than male athletes (Opendorse).
This engagement has paid off big time. According to Axios, the two biggest March Madness social media stars from last year are women. Kendall Baker wrote: “UConn's Paige Bueckers and Louisville's Hailey Van Lith have the highest social media earning potential among Sweet 16 players, per exclusive data from Opendorse, and women's players make up 11 of the top 20 athletes.”
This year, expect the same social media dominance from female athletes during March Madness. Keep an eye on Caitlyn Clark (Iowa), Angel Reese (LSU), and the entire South Carolina squad, most notably Aliyah Boston.
People are watching women's sports, and brands are buying in.
Television broadcasting is a contentious topic in women’s sports, but the numbers continue to improve. Women's college basketball games averaged 200,000 viewers on ESPN this season — the most in nearly a decade (Front Office Sports).
Live events are also thriving. Auburn Gymnastics, the home of “The Queen” Derrian Gobourne, sold out their 2023 season ticket offering for the second consecutive year. Over in Iowa, they averaged 10,237 fans per home game for the Hawkeyes women’s basketball (WBB) team, and their season finale sold out and was flexed to a more prime television slot (On3).
Speaking of broadcasts, Ally Bank is no stranger to women’s sports as a prominent sponsor of the National Women’s Soccer League. They recently branched out into WBB with an ESPN deal they announced in February. The one-year deal is important, not just because it sponsors women’s sports but also because the multimillion-dollar contract requires 90% of its investment to be put into women’s sports through the expansion of game highlights, branded content, and features across ESPN (CNBC).
Interested in learning more about women’s sports and television? Read THIS article from Digiday.
Collectives are slacking when it comes to supporting women.
If you follow NIL news, the above statement will come as no surprise, but the numbers might shock you. According to Opendorse, only 34% of existing collectives compensate female athletes as of January 2023. This means that most of their revenue comes from brand endorsement deals – 79%, to be precise (Front Office Sports).
Despite the lopsided numbers, some collectives are doing right by women. Look no further than the shining star example of Utah’s “Who Rock the House” collective. This women’s gymnastics collective is believed to be the first sport-specific female athlete collective.
This fast glimpse into the status of women’s sports reveals that interest and engagement are skyrocketing, but there are still gaps to fill in the coming years.
The ceiling is high. It’s only up from here for women’s athletics.