OU women’s gymnastics won their second national title in a row during the 2023 season as well. The NCAA Gymnastics Championship was the most-viewed gymnastics championship ever on ESPN’s platforms. The event drew about 1.02 million viewers, with a peak of 1.32 million viewers. That’s a 10% increase from last year.
Aside from OU women’s athletics, two other teams made headlines during their respective seasons. Nebraska’s volleyball match against Omaha set the record for the largest crowd to watch a women’s sporting event in the US with 92,003 fans in attendance. Iowa women’s basketball set the women’s basketball attendance record at 55,646 thanks to the headlines Caitlin Clark made during Women’s March Madness earlier this year.
We’re also seeing an increase in concurrency with men’s sports. This year, the NCAA expanded the women’s March Madness tournament to 68 teams just like the men’s team. Training facilities and coverage were also improved. The US Women’s Open announced in 2021 that the overall purse would nearly double from $5.5 million to $10 million. There are also plans to increase the purse to $12 million within the next five years.
So what’s the cause behind the increased engagement in women’s sports? The demand for women’s sports is up. Aside from increased funding and support, there’s a new type of audience that comes with the uptick in coverage of women’s sports.
Not only college-level athletics saw an uptick in funding, media coverage, etc. The WNBA announced that they’d received $75 million to further develop the league, provide players with a higher salary, and improved benefits.
Additionally, a study from Nielsen Sports showed that audiences found women’s sports and athletes to be more inspiring, progressive, family-oriented, and clean than men’s sports. Women’s sports don’t seem to be driven by the large payout professional athletes earn during their career.
While women’s sports have made a lot of progress from the last 25 years, we still have a long way to go. Women’s sports are just now being granted what men’s sports have always had. One day women’s sports will have the same benefits and media coverage as men’s sports.
