The Rise of Women’s Sports Isn’t a Moment, It’s a Movement | Analysis

Sports

From its rising talent and better media coverage to its impressive ROI, the segment is becoming the next great advertising frontier

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Caitlin Clark, Serena Williams and Alex Morgan (Getty Images/Chris Smith/TheWrap)

This weekend, one of the guest stars who received the most applause on “Saturday Night Live” was a women’s college basketball player. Five years ago, the idea that could happen would have been a bad Michael Che joke. Now Iowa point guard Caitlin Clark and this year’s WNBA first round draft pick, is a household name.

Welcome to the new era of women’s sports. At a time when dwindling audiences have become commonplace, ESPN set a record for its most watched college basketball game in the network’s 45-year history during the NCAA Women’s Championship. The contest between the University of Iowa and the University of South Carolina delivered 18.9

Kayla Cobb

Kayla has covered the TV industry for more then seven years. Before joining TheWrap in April of 2023, she was the Senior TV Reporter at Decider, the New York Post’s entertainment vertical that focuses on the streaming industry. She was instrumental to the site’s growth, helping transform a fledging site to a respected name in…

Loree Seitz

Loree joined TheWrap as a reporter in 2022 after interning at the publication during the summer of 2021. Loree has covered entertainment, film and television for TheWrap and has reported on the media industry and the cable news beat. She has also written for MovieMaker Magazine, where she interned in 2020.

Comments

One response to “The Rise of Women’s Sports Isn’t a Moment, It’s a Movement | Analysis”

  1. Greg Anderson Avatar
    Greg Anderson

    You know, female athletes should get every penny the market(s) will bear, and the markets should be built more on quality of play than gender of players. I wonder though, is a part of the “movement” toward fans and audiences finally embracing female sports born of watching athletes who (because of money not arriving by the barrel-full) are competing and playing with stronger ties to the love of the given sport. None of that is meant as an indictment of any athlete, of any gender; just an acknowledgment of a quality when watching women on the courts (basketball, tennis), fields, and pitches that their emotion involvement goes beyond contract considerations. When the money bumps inevitably come to female sports and leagues, I hope the love of competition endures in ways that it seem not to have been able to in men’s sports.

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