Just recently, the billion-dollar video game franchise NBA 2K featured WNBA superstar Candace Parker on the NBA 2K22 cover, making her the first woman to appear on the cover of an NBA 2K game. This marks a big step forward and is indicative of the status of women’s sports today.
Whereas women’s sports used to take a backseat to men’s sports, it is now being accorded its due respect and recognition in multiple ways. Although there is still room for progress before women’s sports become as prominent and profitable as men’s sports, it is undeniably already a business powerhouse with plenty of potential for everyone involved.
The Growth of Women’s Sports
The growth of women’s sports has been a constant trend in recent years. For instance, in 2020 alone, the viewership of the National Women’s Soccer League dramatically increased by almost 300%, partly thanks to the deals the NWSL struck with CBS and Twitch, and also because it was the first professional group sports league to resume operations during the pandemic, which helped introduce it to a wider audience of sports fans.
According to the Nielsen study The Rise of Women’s Sports – Identifying and maximizing the opportunity, 66% of people are interested in at least one women’s sport, while 84% of sports fans are interested in women’s sports in general. In fact, it has been found that sports fans are composed of 49% women and 51% men, a minimal disparity as compared to the gaps between the status of women’s and men’s sports.
It has also been found that 45% of the population would consider attending live women’s sporting events and 46% have said that they would be inclined to watch more women’s sports if women’s sporting events were shown on free-to-air television. 39% have also said that they would watch more if women’s sports were freely accessible online. Moreover, 38% of those who had never watched a women’s sports event in their life have said that they could be interested to do so in the future.
Plus, it was also found that women’s sports are viewed more positively than their male counterparts. Women’s sports are perceived to be less profit-centered, less prone to cheating, more inspiring, and more family-friendly than men’s sports.
A further indicator that the viewership of sports is not a male-dominated sphere is the 2020 finding that the MLB saw a staggering 83% growth in engagement with women aged 18 to 34.
The shifting perception on women’s sports boosted by the broader availability of coverage has led to a surge in women’s sports’ popularity. This has opened the door to more profitable commercial opportunities, such as in ticket sales, advertising, and sponsorships.
From 2013 to 2017, the number of sponsorship deals in women’s sports increased by 47%, and that figure is sure to grow given the much wider exposure women’s sports have had in recent years.
Room for Improvement
Despite the trend of growth in the women’s sports industry, there still remains a clear gender gap in the world of sports, and thus remains a huge potential for the growth of women’s sports. That same potential is something that the world of men’s sports does not have.
For instance, in the executive sphere, only half of sports governing bodies have boardrooms with members composed of at least 25% women. In the media aspect, in 2020, although women made up 40% of the people, they only received 4% of coverage from sports media. Even considering its recent growth, the fact still stands that women’s sports receive less coverage from all platforms.
The inequality extends to women’s sports in the collegiate level. In NCAA Division I, although more than half of the students are composed of women, only 44% of the athletic opportunities are for women. Division I Football schools spend only $1 for women’s programs for every $2.50 spent on men’s programs. Coaches for women’s teams earn only $0.63 for every $1 coaches for men’s teams earn. Another eye-opening statistic is that the expenditures for Division I football alone exceed all spending on women’s sports, with the former having expenditures amounting to $16 million and the latter $10 million.
As regards professional sports, there is an evident pay gap between male and female athletes. Female athletes on average earn only 63% of what their male counterparts earn. In professional basketball, the NBA allocates up to 51% of league revenue to its players, while the WNBA allocates less than 23%. The 2021 Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid athletes only has two women – Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams.
Why Investing in Women’s Sports is a Good Idea
Experts have claimed that women’s sports make for good investments. Women’s sports present a valuable partnership opportunity for brands since it has been found that 1 in 5 people are more influenced by sponsors of women’s sports than those of men’s, and 63% of people have said that they believe brands should invest both in men’s and women’s sports.
Many international companies have already struck partnerships with women’s sports which points to the fact that the women’s sports industry has the capacity to stand on its own. Not only does investing in women’s sports present benefits from a commercial standpoint, it also helps elevate the world of women’s sports and shift perceptions in order to enact changes that will eventually lead to equality.
