Women’s sports are on an upward trajectory as fans, brands engage

The fervor and passion surrounding women’s sports aren’t going to go away, said Jessica Berman, commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League. They’re only going to get bigger.

“We’ve finally reached the point where it isn’t a question as to whether this is a moment and it’s going to pass or whether it’s going to stand the test of time, because it isn’t just an isolated set of circumstances that have been successful, like one sport or one league or one event,” Berman said during CNBC x Boardroom’s Game Plan sports business event on Tuesday.

Berman noted that women’s sports used to only account for around 5% of sports media coverage and now account for closer to 15%, showing a pattern of success across leagues and athletes. And those leagues are sharing best practices so that all women’s sports can get a boost.

“We’re trying to grow our share of the pie; no fight over our tiny little sliver of the pie,” she said.

And fans aren’t the only one taking notice. Sara Gotfredson, founder of Trailblazing Sports Group, said Tuesday that there’s a strong business case for brands to get in on the ground floor for burgeoning leagues like the NWSL and the Women’s National Basketball Association.

Gotfredson noted that fans of women’s sports are “fanning differently” and are more engaged “from a brand partner perspective” than those who follow men’s sports and male athletes. She called out brands like Google, Ally Bank and AT&T as leaders in the space that are seeing the value in building equity with fledgling women’s sports leagues.

“It’s still a small percentage of brands spending in women’s sports,” she said. “It continues to get bigger.”

Cameron Brink, a forward on the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks has been endorsed by a number of brands including New Balance, Urban Decay and Legal Zoom.

“Even though my [WNBA] contract may not be as much as I’m making off the court, that is how I show up in the space and what I love to do,” she said during Tuesday’s panel. “My success on court leads to success off court.”

Both Brink and USC’s women’s basketball star JuJu Watkins agreed that more women’s sports games need to be more accessible for fans, with Brink saying “keep showing it and making it easier to watch.” Brink said that right now fans have to “jump through so many hoops” to watch games staring female athletes.

Gotfredson, too, noted that there needs to be more coverage of these leagues on linear television as well as on podcasts, YouTube shows and other media.

Yet Berman said women’s leagues have a lot of catching up to do. The NWSL, she noted, is only 13 years old and only recently became independent from the United States Soccer Federation.

“Men’s sports have been around for hundreds of years and have decades of experience,” Berman said. “You can’t catch up to 100 years in 10.”