The slogan “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” was launched by TOGETHXR in 2023 to help undo the belief that nobody watches women’s sports or contributes to the audience. Created by athletes Sue Bird, Chloe Kim, Alex Morgan, and Simone Manuel, it has helped to highlight the rise in popularity and attention in women’s sports to prove that society is finally catching up. Its merch is worn by most athletes and audience members to help promote and encourage engagement and media coverage for the NCAA, WNBA, or NWSL. Their other goals are to help build equality on the field through proper payment and more investment in female athletes. TOGETHXR has worked to make women’s sports and athletes more prominent in a male-dominated space, proving themselves through growing revenue and becoming the tagline in female sports.Â
The 2026 Winter Olympics exemplified the growing importance of women in sports and the need to contribute to their audiences and become more supportive. U.S. women secured 8 out of 12 gold medals and 21 out of 33 total medals. Alysa Liu won gold in Skating Singles, Mikaela Shiffrin and team won gold in Alpine Skiing, Elana Meyers Taylor won gold in bobsled, and the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team brought home the gold after defeating Canada in overtime, becoming undefeated throughout the games. While the women dominated throughout the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, a controversy exploded between the men’s and women’s hockey teams, who both received the gold. The men’s team had laughed at a distasteful joke by President Trump, which overshadowed and diminished the women’s accomplishments and sparked backlash and criticism towards the men’s team for their reaction. While there have been some apologies and acknowledgements of the mistake, it was made clear that female athletes receive nowhere near the same treatment as male athletes and are often looked down upon.
Women’s sports have seen tremendous growth in viewership, investment, and engagement over the past couple of years, becoming more prominent to watch and enjoy. The most obvious and direct growth in audiences was caused by Caitlin Clark throughout her collegiate career at Iowa, most importantly during March Madness. This phenomenon is known as the “Caitlin Clark Effect,” which caused drastic increases in viewership, attendance, media coverage, and investment while she set countless records and effortlessly showed off her 3-pointer skills. She has become the most influential women’s basketball player, bringing in millions of new viewers to women’s basketball, boosting ticket sales, and encouraging women and girls across the globe. Other extremely influential female athletes include Ilona Maher, an American rugby player with a huge social media following and influence, Simone Biles, an Olympic gymnast setting new records and driving viewership, and Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, who are basketball stars helping boost WNBA and NCAA women’s viewership. There has also been more social media engagement, increased coverage of games and quality, which helped to mainstream women’s sports, a unique fan base, and other emerging sports, all of which have helped to grow women’s sports.Â
While there has been a lot of growth, visibility, and attraction towards women’s sports, we still see that various challenges remain, such as gender pay gaps, lower media coverage compared to men’s sports, and higher dropout rates for females. A study done in 2023 found that male athletes make 21% more than females. Recently, due to the increased viewership and attendance, female athletes have been making more money, mostly through endorsements, but not enough to close the gap.
Recently, the WNBA has reached a verbal bargaining agreement to improve salaries and revenue. Unfortunately, the WNBA would not survive without the NBA’s financial support, which they rely on to cover their annual losses. However, for the first time in history, the WNBA received enough revenue to turn a profit in 2025, due to the recent surge in viewership and focus on women’s sports. This growth in women’s sports is extremely important, and hopefully, the audiences will continue to grow throughout the years. I have seen this growth in real time while attending WNBA New York Liberty games between 2022 and 2025. It is now nearly impossible to get decently priced seats near the court, and I’ve seen all the seats become filled and the stadium full of loud fans in WNBA merch, which has been incredible to see. It is important to continue supporting female athletes and women’s sports, to grow viewership and audiences, encourage young girls, and close the pay gap. Tune into women’s basketball, tennis, soccer, gymnastics, rugby, flag football, and softball, and watch the women excel at what they do best. Hopefully, the slogan “Everybody Watches Women’s Sports” will become true in the near future.
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