We’ve established that women’s sports are on a rocket ship fueled by investment and fandom.
Now, we need the kind of storytelling that turns into history.One number haunts me in this space, and it’s that from the 1989 until 2019, just 3-5% of ESPN’s SportsCenter was devoted to women’s sports and athletes. When Purdue Professor Cheryl Cooky and USC’s Michael Messner would repeat the research every few years, it was always in that range.
World Cups, NCAA tournaments, the Olympics - 3-5%. It was a number sitting like a cork on top of the WNBA and women’s March Madness, USWNT soccer and Grand Slam tennis. For decades.
We have so much catching up to do.
You’ll hear that our attention spans may be shot, and people don’t read like they used to, but that is an easy off ramp for people with the keys to platforms and resources.
“The traditional business of storytelling has not caught up,” said Patty Ivins, who just Executive Produced The Rise, a series of five women’s sports documentaries from Hello Sunshine on Peacock. Ivins has done her part to correct for the inequity. She chronicled the first season of the PWHL, the WNBA’s historic 2024 season and took a look at the business of women’s sports. (Full disclosure, I got to talk to her for a few of these).
Social media is a vibrant place with so much celebration of women’s sports. There’s another lane needed, so that in 100 years when our daughters want to know more about Lindsey Vonn, Megan Rapinoe, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Marta and A’ja Wilson, they find the books and documentaries and podcasts that tell a more fulsome story.
The 99ers is being made into a movie, and yet, so many stories are untold. Million Dollar Baby, A League of Their Own, Bend It Like Beckham - the genre of women’s sports fiction has some blockbuster precedents. But where are today’s contenders?It’s important because we need our own histories and heroes. Think about how Yankees fans know who Babe Ruth is, or can pull Derek Jeter’s rookie season from their short-term memory. It’s that connection to the past and how it is woven anew into the present that creates generational fandom.
It starts with stories. Like Michelle Akers, Angela Ruggiero and Cheryl Miller. Women who played during the 3-5%. So much of what they accomplished happened while playing lights out in the dark.
