Women’s sports coverage far from enough

How lack of coverage sets women’s sports leagues up for failure

SportsOpinionMaria Sampaio — Published December 3, 2024 0 minutes

While talent, participation and fan interest in women’s sports have grown, they still struggle to gain mainstream attention. This media neglect isn’t just an oversight—it’s a systemic issue that harms the viability of women’s sports leagues and holds back their potential growth.

Media coverage plays a crucial role in building fanbases, attracting sponsors, and creating financial opportunities for both leagues and teams as a whole, but also individual athletes. While women’s sports media coverage has grown in recent years and new professional leagues have debuted in North America and beyond, the media attention is still not enough to give them the best chance to prosper.

According to a 2022 Sport Information Resource Centre analysis, less than 10 per cent of Canadian sports news outlets’ coverage was about women’s sports. This is despite two in three Canadians between the ages of 13 and 65 considering themselves to be fans of women’s sports, per a report published by Canadian Women & Sport. There is a clear public interest in women’s sports, but traditional sports media has yet to catch up.

With a lack of coverage from traditional media, leagues and fans have turned to new alternatives. Women’s leagues such as the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and F1 Academy have their events streamed for free on YouTube to reach their fans. Women’s-sports-only platforms have been created, such as The GIST, Just Women’s Sports and the more recent All Women’s Sports Network.

With a lack of news coverage of their favourite women’s sports, fans have taken it upon themselves to report on the happenings, such as Coach Jackie J, who has over 50 million likes on TikTok.

Efforts from traditional media such as ESPN’s espnW, the women’s-sports-only offshoot of the former, have good intent behind them to gather attention to women’s sports. However, they inadvertently perpetuate the idea that women’s sports fans are so fundamentally different from men’s sports fans that they need a different platform. 

While men’s sports often have dedicated outlets for different leagues, or entire dedicated sections in bigger outlets, women’s sports are often grouped together in a women’s section. Men’s sports have dedicated reporters for ice hockey, basketball or soccer, but women’s sports are often covered by “women’s sports” reporters and correspondents.

The lack of easily accessible coverage largely influences the success of a women's sports league, but the level of buy-in from traditional sports media also plays an important role—the harder it is to access, the fewer people will watch it. 

Historically, journalism has the power to not only bring attention to a cause but also give it legitimacy. Proper journalistic coverage convinces an audience that something is worth caring about. 

With new women’s sports leagues debuting in recent years, quality coverage is more important than ever to give these leagues a real chance at establishing themselves, especially in the early years.

To truly close the gap in disproportionate coverage, traditional sports outlets need to increase and diversify coverage of women’s sports. It certainly is not enough to broadcast a few games or post occasional game highlights. Women’s leagues deserve full coverage, in-depth storytelling and consistent exposure across multiple platforms. 

The media must stop treating women’s sports as a niche interest and recognize them for what they are: competitive and entertaining leagues capable of drawing in large audiences.