women’s sports

It’s a good time to be in the women’s sports business, and during the upcoming upfront, the E.W. Scripps Co. will be pushing its WNBA and NWSL franchise nights as a way to get more advertisers spending more money on Ion and its other television properties.

WPP’s GroupM unit this morning announced plans to double its annual media investment in women’s sports-related media, and has created a new, dedicated marketplace to focus on it. As part of the initiative, GroupM said it is looking for “first-to-market” opportunities for its roster of clients including Adidas, Ally, Coinbase, Discover, Google, Mars, Nationwide, Unilever, Universal Pictures and others in its 2024-25 upfront media-buying negotiations.

Advertisers looking to reach a growing younger, diverse and high-income audience should be taking a look at women’s sports, according to a new report from Samba TV. Samba points to an 81% ratings increase for the March Madness of the women’s college basketball champions, a 171% jump for the WNBA Finals and the National Women’s Soccer League championship growing 453%.

Coverage of Division I women’s sports has been in a particularly bright spotlight in 2021 and the record-setting Women’s College World Series was just the latest example of growing interest — and growing demands for a more equitable playing field when compared with men’s events.

Sally Jenkins: “Someone on Capitol Hill, please explain why the dystopian, reform-resistant NCAA should get one more dime or tax favor from an American electorate that is more than half female. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has remarked that we need to recognize the NCAA ‘for the civil rights issue that it is,” a system in which “80 to 90 percent of the adults who are getting rich off college athletics are White men.’ While we’re at it, let’s recognize how it uses and demeans women.”