By MAYA SWEEDLER
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Meghan Sells heads to Windfall Park to look at Oregon’s skilled ladies’s soccer workforce, she finds herself amongst a reasonably combined crowd — teams of younger ladies, dads bringing their kids, youth gamers testing the Thorns’ newest match.
The doctor’s assistant is a self-described lifelong sports activities fan and former softball participant who “will watch any sport.” That features each collegiate {and professional} sports activities for ladies, placing Sells squarely in a fan base that out of the blue has extra choices than ever earlier than and is seen as fertile floor for groups and advertisers desperate to trip the rising curiosity within the ladies’s recreation.
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults observe ladies’s skilled or school sports activities “extremely,” “very” or “somewhat” carefully, based on a brand new ballot from The Related Press-NORC Heart for Public Affairs Analysis. That’s decrease than the share who observe males’s sports activities by the identical measurements — about half — however it additionally reveals that Sells is much from alone.
As curiosity and funding in ladies’s sports activities have picked up in recent times, so have the entry factors for followers. The meteoric rise of Caitlin Clark, the College of Iowa phenom-turned-WNBA star, helped deliver wider consideration to ladies’s basketball, and elevated streaming availability, worldwide success and identify, picture and likeness offers have elevated the worth and viewership of ladies’s sports activities.
“Growing up, I feel like the only sports I was able to really see on TV were men’s — which is fine, I like men’s sports,” Sells stated. “But I enjoy watching women’s sports more. … I think the more that you see it on TV, the more you’re going to have younger people interested in it.”
The ballot discovered that girls’s sports activities followers — those that observe ladies’s sports activities at the very least “somewhat” carefully — are totally different from males’s sports activities followers. Followers of ladies’s sports activities, whereas not a majority-female group, are extra gender balanced than males’s sports activities followers. Those that observe ladies’s professional sports activities are also extra informal of their fandom than males’s professional sports activities followers, tending to say they attend or watch video games often slightly than continuously. Individuals who observe males’s sports activities, in contrast, usually tend to establish attachments to groups versus gamers.
The survey was carried out simply earlier than the beginning of the 2025 WNBA season, an growth 12 months for the league. Coming off a season wherein attendance data have been set (and reset ), the league will debut a brand new franchise — the Golden State Valkyries — and up the variety of common season video games from 40 to 44.
In 2026, two extra groups will be part of the league, together with one in Portland, Oregon. Sells, who’s been within the metropolis for a couple of decade, stated she is ready to get season tickets.
Completely different fan bases
Males’s sports activities at each the collegiate {and professional} ranges stay extra in style than ladies’s sports activities, the ballot discovered. About one-third of U.S. adults stated they watch, take heed to or examine males’s collegiate sports activities at the very least “somewhat” carefully, and greater than 4 in 10 say they observe males’s professional sports activities. Against this, about 2 in 10 say they observe ladies’s collegiate sports activities at the very least “somewhat” carefully, and an identical share say they observe ladies’s professional sports activities.
A larger share of males than ladies say they observe skilled or collegiate sports activities total, however the gender steadiness was extra even amongst ladies’s sports activities followers. Round half of followers of ladies’s sports activities are male, the survey discovered, in contrast with about two-thirds of followers of males’s sports activities.
This may very well be partially as a result of overlap between the fandoms: About 90% of U.S. adults who observe ladies’s sports activities at the very least “somewhat” carefully additionally say the identical about males’s sports activities, although about half of people that observe males’s sports activities stated additionally they adopted ladies’s sports activities.
As ladies’s sports activities improve in recognition and accessibility, a comparatively massive share are informal followers. Whereas near 9 in 10 of each males’s and girls’s professional sports activities followers say they continuously or often watch, take heed to or examine their respective skilled sports activities, the next share of ladies’s sports activities followers say they’re solely occasional customers.
That’s how he began following Clark, whose last seasons at Iowa have been credited with bringing new viewers to the game and who now performs for the Indiana Fever.
“I was seeing it on MSNBC,” he stated. “I don’t watch a lot of basketball. It’s not a men’s and women’s thing. If she was playing in a women’s football league, I’d probably watch that.”
Attending video games
Males’s sports activities — with bigger leagues, larger TV offers and a extra expansive media ecosystem — have a extra fervent viewers. About two-thirds of males’s sports activities followers stated they “frequently” or “occasionally” attend knowledgeable sporting occasion in individual, in contrast with roughly half of ladies’s sports activities followers.
One potential cause ladies’s sports activities followers aren’t exhibiting up at sporting occasions is that they’re much less prone to be hooked up to a selected workforce. Solely about one-third of ladies’s sports activities followers stated the groups they help or observe are “extremely” or “very” vital to why they observe the game. For males’s followers, the determine was round 50%.
Nonetheless, almost an identical shares of males’s and girls’s sports activities followers stated that sure athletes they help have been at the very least “very” vital to why they observe ladies’s sports activities.
Bernard Seltzer, a highschool administrator and math and science instructor in Tampa, Florida, considers himself a normal sports activities fan and stated he enjoys watching probably the most skillful athletes, no matter their gender. Even at the highschool stage, he’s impressed by the finesse he sees feminine athletes reveal.
“Sometimes it’s more impressive than watching masculine people banging their heads against the wall,” he stated.
The AP-NORC ballot of 1,260 adults was carried out April 17-21, utilizing a pattern drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be consultant of the U.S. inhabitants. The margin of sampling error for adults total is plus or minus 3.9 share factors.
Initially Revealed: Might 13, 2025 at 12:43 PM EDT
