Women's sports are having a moment
The booming businesses of the NCAA, PWHL and WNBA are proving the doubters wrong. People will watch women's sports if you give it a platform
One of the stories I returned to over and over again in my last job was the future of women’s professional hockey. I wrote features about the poorly resourced women’s game when the Canadian Women’s Hockey League was playing in front of dozens of fans at community arenas. Covered the schism when the NWHL was formed to create two pro leagues that didn’t have enough paying fans or money. I wrote about the collapse of the CWHL, and the looooong process to develop a league that might replace it. I’d link to all this stuff here, but they all repeated the same themes.
Why did the same companies — sponsors, broadcasters, investors — that showered money on the NHL in this country not spend even a tiny fraction of that on a women’s league that would allow players to not also need part-time jobs? Why was this so hard? Women’s sports was hugely popular at the Olympics and Worlds, and yet these athletes would return home after a gold-medal game watched by millions and find nowhere to play. It was nuts. Last year’s WWHC was won of the last big events I covered in that job.
But, finally, women’s sports are having a moment. Caitlin Clark in the NCAA, the newly formed PWHL, rising ratings in the WNBA, there is momentum there. Advocates have long said that if you give women’s leagues a proper platform, the audience will be there. You just have to help them find it, by not burying it on hard-to-find specialty channels and with unpredictable schedules. Treat it like a real league, fans will treat it like one back.
I wrote about some of this for the Globe, here. It’s a topic I’ll be revisiting in this newsletter for sure. For now, it’s just nice to see these athletes prove their many doubters wrong.