FROM THE SHADOWS TO THE SPOTLIGHT
For three decades, it has been believed that women’s sports have received a fraction of coverage in comparison to men’s sports.
The widely accepted statistic has been stated as 3-5.5% of sports coverage, depending on heat moments versus regular play.
However, with the advent and increased proliferation of digital media, streaming programming and social media, Wasserman’s The Collective® and Global Insights team set out to understand a more precise share of voice for women’s sports in partnership with ESPN Research.
Our methodology seeks to provide a more comprehensive look at the modern women's sports media environment in the U.S. from 2018-2023, identifying coverage across 100 linear TV networks, samplings of various major streaming services, top sports media social accounts and dozens of digital media publications.
This sample is meant to be representative of general sports coverage, focusing on the media outlets that have the opportunity and incentive to cover various sports across the landscape and avoiding league or player-owned outlets that likely skew coverage towards a single sport.
A new look at the increased media coverage of women’s sports.