It doesn’t seem long ago that a previous article I wrote was catching major hate on X, formerly known as Twitter.
After writing about an investigative report by ESPN on the gender disparity seen within athletic social media pages and how NC State needs to be more mindful about equal promotion, I struck a nerve with a specific audience online.
“For the love of it,” one reply read. “Woman’s sports aren’t interesting except for a few select games or events. Find something else to whine about.”
I wonder where these men are after the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
For the first time, the women’s championship game garnered more attention than the men’s, blowing the viewership statistics out of the water. With an average of 18.9 million viewers, the game was shown during the afternoon primetime slot on ESPN and ABC and peaked at 24.1 million viewers during the final 15 minutes of play.
Viewership of this year’s game was up 90% from last season’s title game between LSU and Iowa, which was the first time the championship game was broadcast on network television since 1995.
ESPN has been the broadcasting host of the NBA since 2002, but the women’s final was its most watched college basketball game ever.
Special players make special moments to watch, and many young, talented women highlighted this year’s tournament. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and LSU’s Angel Reese all drew massive attention throughout all rounds of March Madness.
It’s not just women’s basketball that has been growing in viewership over the past year either: Women’s volleyball and softball have increased attendance and viewership over the past few years during their championships.
The 2023 NCAA volleyball championship saw a historic 19,727 fans in attendance and a 115% increase in television viewership from the previous year’s game. Across the country, schools were reporting historic attendance in their gyms, with 30 D1 volleyball programs reporting new records during the regular season.
Game two of the 2023 Women’s College World Series averaged 1.9 million viewers, peaking at 2.3 million, and was up by 7% from the previous year.
It appears that this March Madness caused a renaissance amongst male sports fans. For the first time in their lives, men found out that women play just as good as men and are sometimes even better. To some, including Lebron James, the men’s tournament just wasn’t fun to watch this year. The women’s playmaking was more similar to the NBA and allowed for more passing, cutting and sharing the ball.
While women’s athletics programs don’t need men’s approval to be good, it’s always nice to have more fans. Other celebrities like Shaquille O’Neal, Jason Sudeikis, Chris Paul, Sue Bird and Jimmy Fallon have been seen wearing shirts that read “Everyone watches women’s sports,” a trademark of the brand TOGETHXR, which is leading the charge in promoting women’s athletic programs at all levels.
Women’s sports has turned a new leaf and is here to stay. Men’s old-fashioned opinions on what “good sports” are have turned out to be wrong time and time again, and this year proved it more than ever.
