By Lexi Semanchik
When you think of watching sports, many people initially think of leagues like the NFL, MLB, or the NBA. The one thing all of these leagues have in common is that they are men’s sports, they’re getting all of the coverage. When you scroll through your television channels, seldom have you seen women’s sports being played in the past, but a slow and steady change has begun recently. This past year, the WNBA has exploded, with 157 million views on their social pages – up 356% from last year – and arenas are reaching 94% attendance rate, which is 17% more than last year (WNBA). The recent growth can most likely be attributed to the unavoidable fame of the rookie class which contains Caitlin Clark, the new all time leading NCAA scorer (Reed). This is not just within women’s sports but also men’s, she had an electric college career that has fully thrusted women’s sports into the forefront. Combine her with other rookies like Cameron Brink and Angel Reese, and there is enough momentum to make it a sport people watch.
However, with this incredible growth, it is not being reflected on social media pages or in the voices of sport sharing heavy hitters. Over their last 28 YouTube shorts, ESPN has only posted about the WNBA three times (ESPN). While this is more than would have been seen 5 years ago, it is still settling for the bare minimum. This may be affected by the fact that the WNBA only has 12 teams versus the 30 teams in the NBA, but shows there is significantly less investment in the league (Helbig). All women’s sports are growing at what seems like an exceptional rate, but the WNBA is one that has the momentum right now to explode. In salary comparison, the minimum salary for an NBA rookie is a little over $1 million, while star players in the WNBA are making on average $242,000 (Greenlight). The NBA makes more revenue than the WNBA while simultaneously hosting over 1,000 more games than the WNBA (Jope). How can it even seem fair to compare the two leagues?
They are the same sport, that’s why. While there are some things that don’t happen in the WNBA – very few athletes are probably dunking on a fast break – it is one of the sports that, beyond a few things, is the most like its male counterparts. All of the rules are the same, there are superstars that are incredibly exciting to watch, and there is a passion and love for the game that can be seen on the court. However, there is a continuous dismissal of sharing the WNBA from larger media conglomerates who are hesitant to break the status quo and make the first move into posting women’s sports. The WNBA is heavily documenting their skyrocketing success, beating their own records multiple times over this year in terms of viewership, sales, social media analytics and tickets through press releases and increased content (WNBA). All of this proves that there is an audience for women’s sports. It’s one that is growing, excited, and ready to spend money and fill seats like all organizations are looking for.
Discussion Questions
How has the rookie class of this WNBA season changed the trajectory of the sport for the better? How can that work be maintained instead of undone?
How has the WNBA grown in the last 5 years in popularity? What has caused it and how can that growth continue?
Where on social media – not including the WNBA’s own channels – has that growth been seen? Or are we not seeing it as much as we should?
What holds media conglomerates back from posting more about non-major sports that seem to have a following?
Citations
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Grieves, S. (2016, August 12). Aesthetics over athletics when it comes to women in Sport. University of Cambridge. https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/aesthetics-over-athletics-when-it-comes-to-women-in-sport
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Lexie, WOW! Great Case Study and you do such a great job of touching on so many topics that surround the disparity between female and male sports. I really liked how you reviewed certain physical differences in play such as less female “dunks”. I never really looked at it in that way before. But just bc females play a bit different doesn’t mean it’s not just as entertaining.
In your last paragraph you mention how we still deal with the stigma of being slower, not “as strong” etc… As someone who played soccer into college, I remember my frustration of scrimmaging the boys team (my brother was a defender on the team). He would laugh after and talk about how slow we all were compared to the boys and how boring it was to scrimmage the girls. I realized then that the engrained misogyny most have would make it really difficult for females in sports to gain the respect and attention they deserve.