#117 Recent Key Milestones and Challenges in Women's Sports

Sports CDP Crash Course - Data Talks

Out of the 10,500 athletes participating in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, 5,250 will be men and 5,250 women. These Games will be the first to reach full gender parity in number of athletes. As a reminder that empowering and uplifting women is not just reserved for International Women’s Day, today we will be highlighting key milestones that are coming out of women’s sports and sports in general while also shedding light on some of the challenges that need to be addressed immediately, for women to be able to thrive in sports.

While it is a great milestone having the first gender-equal Olympics, a recent study by the BBC showed that more than three-quarters said they earn less than £30,000 a year from sport - with more than four in 10 earning less than £10,000 and six in 10 earning less than £20,000. This means that ¾ of elite female athletes earn less than the average £34,963 salary in the United Kingdom. The wage of elite sportswomen is a challenge that shows the importance of professionalizing women’s sports and the need to invest in them so that more commercial value can come out of them.

In the 2022/23 season, Reading and West Ham's cheapest match tickets were the most expensive in the FA Women's Super League, costing 12 British pounds. Meanwhile, the cheapest tickets could be found for six British pounds at Liverpool and Manchester United. This fact continues to beg the question, are clubs and leagues undervaluing women’s sports? If so, what should be done about it in a way that does not alienate those who have found the accessibility of women’s sports a reason to engage.

In happier news across the pond, the National Women’s Soccer League has been ranked No. 5 on the list of Fast Company’s the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2024. The League’s commissioner, Jessica Berman was quoted as saying, “Women’s sports is a historically under-invested asset class” However, last year attendance for regular season games grew by 26% to 1.2 million people, while viewership of CBS broadcasts leapt 41%. These remarkable numbers helped the league negotiate a landmark media-rights deal that will see 118 NWSL games broadcast across CBS Sports, ESPN, Prime Video, and Scripps Sports each season for the next four years. This deal is worth $240 million, 40 times more valuable than the NWSL’s previous agreement.

The NWSL partnered with Liga MX Femenil to launch a new Summer Cup. All 14 teams in the NWSL and six teams from LIGA MX Femenil will compete from July 19-August 2. This new Summer Cup will take place during the Olympic break of the NWSL regular season. Not to make this episode about just the NWSL, but the Kansas City Current, a club co-owned by NFL star Patrick Mahomes, made history as the first team to build a stadium specifically for professional women’s sports. The team hosted Portland Thorns in the first game at CPKC stadium – in front of a sold-out, 11,500 crowd.

Mercury 13, a women's football multi-club ownership group, unveiled their first portfolio team recently after acquiring a controlling stake in Como Women from Italy's Serie A. In case you are tempted into thinking that the only movement is in football, at the end of last year, Metro Bank & ECB Pledged to Treble the Number of Girls’ Cricket Teams by 2026, that’s only 2 years from now. The two organisations will work together to transform access to grassroots cricket by recruiting 6,000 volunteers to grow girls’ cricket so there are 2,000 clubs with girls' sections and 6,000 girls' teams by 2026.

It is exciting to see all the positive changes that are coming out of women’s sports and I am personally excited to see more changes like these in women’s sports.