Women's Sports Are Booming. The Media Still Doesn't Care.
Something historic happened in college basketball in 2024: the NCAA Women's Championship final drew more viewers than the men's. Caitlin Clark vs. Iowa in a packed arena, broadcast to millions. It was the most-watched college basketball game — men's or women's — in 30 years.
The response from most of mainstream sports media? Coverage as an anomaly. A curiosity. "Women's basketball had a moment."
The moment has been happening for 30 years. The media is just starting to notice — and even now, it's barely paying attention.
The Coverage Gap by the Numbers
A 2021 USC Annenberg School study — a longitudinal study tracking sports media coverage since 1989 — found that women's sports receive approximately 5% of total sports media coverage in the United States. That number has barely moved in three decades.
TV broadcast time for women's sports hovered around 3.5% of total sports airtime as recently as 2019. ESPN's SportsCenter dedicated roughly 2% of its nightly airtime to women's sports over a sample month in 2023.
Meanwhile: the NWSL's national TV deal more than doubled in value between 2022 and 2024. The WNBA signed a media rights deal worth $2.2 billion over 11 years in 2024. The Women's World Cup generated $570 million in revenue.
The demand is there. The money is there. The coverage isn't.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The standard media industry explanation for the coverage gap is circular: "We cover what people watch, and people watch what we cover."
Media outlets deprioritize women's sports → fans have fewer entry points → casual fans don't develop attachment → ratings are lower → media uses lower ratings to justify less coverage → repeat.
The system is designed to maintain the status quo. And the status quo has been profitable for the people running it.
What's Actually Shifting
The business of sports media is fragmenting. Streaming, social media, and direct-to-consumer platforms are bypassing traditional gatekeepers. Athletes like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Alexia Putellas have built massive followings on their own terms. The WNBA's most recent draft was streamed on ESPN and ABC in primetime — a first.
Younger sports fans consume content differently. They follow athletes, not just leagues. They watch highlights on TikTok before they watch games on cable. The traditional media hierarchy that kept women's sports off the air has less power over their consumption habits.
The shift is happening. It's just happening slower than the viewership numbers would justify.
The Bottom Line
The "nobody watches women's sports" narrative is empirically false. The viewership is there. The attendance is there. The cultural moment is there.
What's not there is the institutional will to cover it as a first-tier product rather than a novelty. That's a choice — made by editors, producers, and executives who grew up with a certain picture of what "real" sports looks like.
The picture is changing. It just isn't changing fast enough.
