Recording the number of basketball fans has filled arenas to watch the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese Recruit Seasons. Simone Biles captivated the world at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Coco Gauff made the history of women’s tennis.
All this was part of a central year for women in sport, financially and culturally, and after a constant increase in popularity and scope in recent years, the female game is more precious than ever.
“(Clark) has just moved the needle of the World Women’s Movement in Sports,” said Jennie Finch, the big and the Olympic gold medalist. “And what a shiver is to be able to see her go up.”
Consulting company Deloitte said in November 2023 that female sports would generate more than a billion dollars in world income this year for the first time, which, according to the company, increased by around 300% compared to its last estimate in 2021. Major factors.
In July, the WNBA signed a historic 11 -year -old media rights agreement with Disney, Amazon Prime and NBC worth around $ 200 million – a leap to around 60 million dollars currently. The players hope that higher wages and a greater share of income could be on the horizon while parity, the power of the stars and the competition in the WNBA continue to grow.
The WNBA has experienced its most watched regular season in 24 years and the best attendance in 22 seasons, and Commissioner Cathy Engelbert declared in a recent address of the state of the league that players get much more marketing offers, transforming them into household names. This includes the Las Vegas star A’ja Wilson, who has experienced one of the most dominant seasons in the history of the WNBA, and Clark, which has set numerous recus records.
The decisive match 5 of the WNBA final between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx pulled an average of 2.2 million viewers, culminating at 3.3 million, which made it the most watched WNBA match in 25 years.
“We have gained popularity, in the media rights, all these things,” said Amira Rose Davis, sport historian and assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
“This period is rapid acceleration,” continued Davis. “Where all this growth seems to pass to overdrive, where transactions become larger, where visibility extends.”
Clark, the Vivel Indiana goalkeeper became a phenomenon when she played in Iowa, capitalized on a foundation placed by stars of hoops such as Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker and Wilson, and turbocharged the Visibility of women’s basketball.
Ticket sales for Indiana fever matches increased by 182% in 2024 compared to the previous season. The fever also broke the attendance record of 13,398 established by Liberty in 1998 with approximately 16,084 tickets sold per game. And the games showing Clark and its rival on the Reese field of the Chicago Sky have prompted debates on social networks on basketball, race and culture.
“Something I have always tried to do with me was to climb and raise the match,” said Finch, now advisor to the Softball of Athletes Unlimited. “And that’s what (Clark) does and his teammates. And just to be able to watch her do it and how much she humbly does it, and the impact not only of domestic female basketball, but female athletics in the world. It’s a dream.
While many indicate the WNBA as a plan to succeed in female sports, the achievements in 2024 went far beyond a league or an athlete.
Gauff, the 20 -year -old tennis superstar, was the best -paid female athlete in the world this year with $ 30.4 million in income, according to the Sporto ranking. Gauff could not defend his title of open in 2023, but ended his 2024 season with a WTA final title and a check for $ 4.8 million – the biggest payment of all time For a female tennis event, by Sportico.
The Olympic Games approached the complete gender parity for the first time among the more than 11,000 men and women who contributed to Paris this summer.
More than 34 million people on all NBC platforms in the United States have seen Biles exorcise demons from its surprising release of Tokyo Games three years earlier. The 27 -year -old woman shared a message of resilience and redemption when she added four gold medals to her CV. Almost everything she did in Paris made the headlines – an applause on social media trolls, a revelation on her mental health, a moment of triumph. His tiktok showing the gold medals of the United States team of team competition has more than 139 million views.
“It has become a symbol,” said Davis. “Whether you want to symbolize it as persevering or talk about mental health or refusal, the policy of refusal. Or (that) you wanted to symbolize it as an abandonment – to be everything you deplore in the country. Anyway, the two projections have even higher it. »»
And while Gauff and Biles skyrocketed, the leagues of other women have taken advantage of this visibility.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League brought 392,259 fans during its inaugural regular season, underlined by a record for female hockey of 21,105 at the NHL Canadiens Maison for a Montreal-Toronto confrontation. The league has also concluded sponsorship agreements with Scotiaban, Air Canada and Hyundai.
The strong first season of the PWHL showed its organizers and players that there is an appetite for female sports, so much so that there is hope to go from six to eight teams in 2025.
“For many of us who have been in the game for so long, it is emotional to think about the origin of the game, from where we have arrived,” said Jayna Hefford, vice-president of hockey operations in the League . “We spend a lot of time reading research and all these things that suggest time is now and that the Fandom is there. And being able to experience this and feeling it in real time was quite special. »»
Keith Stein and Justine Siegal also want to capitalize on the female sports landscape.
Siegal, a former baseball player and coach, has teamed up with Stein, lawyer and businessman, to create the female baseball league, which announced last month his intention to launch in 2026 as a circuit Six teams for players. It will be the first professional league for women since the Professional Baseball League for All-American girls dissolved in 1954.
“Leagues like WNBA and the Women’s Football League (National) have made a lot of big efforts,” said Stein. “And they are partly responsible as long as we have at this time when women’s sport is a phenomenon.
“I think there are, in some respects, much more momentum behind the development of women’s sports leagues than for men.”