Picture from Just Women’s Sports

On December 17, 2023, the NCAA Division 1 women’s volleyball national championship game took place in Tampa, Florida in a stellar matchup between number 2 seed Texas and number 1 seed Nebraska. ESPN had been given the rights to broadcast the championship game, and before the match had begun, an interesting graphic had appeared. The graphic stated that there were “all eyes on volleyball” in 2023. Back in late August, the Nebraska women’s volleyball team held a match at their football stadium, Memorial Stadium, against Ohama. The match, dubbed “Volleyball Day in Nebraska,” broke the record for most attendance in a women’s sporting event in history with 92,003 people watching. The graphic also stated that 30 women’s volleyball programs set attendance records in 2023, and that there was a record number of viewers in the sport of 1.66 million for a match between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Now, what is going on here? Women’s sports is surely on the rise, and there’s more than just the effect of volleyball on it. A lot of the new attention to women’s sports comes down to its wider exposure being presented. In a report by Forbes, writer Lindsey Darvin writes that roughly “22,000 hours of women’s sports coverage” have been provided across streaming platforms “such as ESPN+, Peacock, Amazon Prime, and Paramount+ at high rates” in 2022. The reported total number of 22,065 hours streamed in 2022 was a 5,124 hour increase from 2021. Darvin states, “Women’s sports received an average share of 15% of media coverage in 2022. If coverage trends continue at this current rate of growth, women’s share of coverage should be close to 20% by 2025.” Darvin also reports that women’s basketball led the way in total hours covered on TV.

Pictured above: Caitlin Clark, star player on Iowa’s women’s basketball program (picture from ABC7 Chicago)

Enter Caitlin Clark. The senior guard on the University of Iowa’s women’s basketball team might stand right now as one of the most polarizing figures in sports, period. If one were to ask who might be single-handedly bringing women’s sports to the forefront of media, it’s Clark. Clark is averaging 32.1 points per game, 7.7 assists, and 7.0 rebounds. She just recently claimed the number two spot on the all-time scoring list for NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball with 3,424 points after a January 31 win against Northwestern. The Iowa star is virtually unstoppable offensively, with analyst Debbie Antonelli stating, “What she does is constantly make the defense wrong. It doesn’t matter what you do–it’s wrong.”

The Caitlin Clark effect is nothing to laugh about. The Baltimore Sun writes, “All seven of the [Iowa] Hawkeyes’ true road games have sold out, with opposing arenas seeing an average increase in attendance of over 150%.” A graph showcased from the Sun shows surprising numbers that tell it all: average attendance of Rutgers’ women’s games were at 2,575 people, and when Iowa plays them it rises to 8,000. Purdue draws in 5,753 fans to their games, and saw 14,876 in the stands when Iowa swung by. Ohio State usually sees 5,668, and when Iowa visits, the number is at 18,860.

The Northwestern-Iowa game was the most telling of the Clark effect. The Sun states that the Northwestern Wildcats’ women’s team typically sees a “Big Ten-worst 1,671 fans per home game.” Yet, when Clark came to Walsh-Ryan Arena, Northwestern saw their first sellout home crowd for a women’s basketball game with 7,039 fans watching.

Here’s the catch when it comes to Caitlin Clark. In social media comments, when ESPN or Bleacher Report would share highlights from women’s sporting events, the commenters typically would, in a misogynistic manner, comment “who cares,” or “irrelevant.” Yet, when Caitlin Clark is reposted, she instead gets something else. Akin to when those outlets post popular figures like Patrick Mahomes, Joel Embiid, or Victor Wembanyama, sports fans have recently instead been calling Clark “overrated.” It might be a stretch, but this evidence is showing the fact that there is an eye being broadcast to women’s sports, and people are starting to actually become invested. There was even a joke going around stating that the NBA’s worst team, the Detroit Pistons, who sported a 28-game losing streak through November and December 2023, were “tanking” to draft Clark with the first overall pick. A woman is beginning to find herself at the forefront of a male-dominated sport, attention-wise.

Pictured above: Clark (left) and LSU’s Angel Reese (right) (picture from Sports Illustrated)

Clark’s stardom came to a head in April 2023, when Iowa faced LSU in the National Championship for women’s basketball. After a battle between the two programs that ended in LSU’s 102-85 victory, LSU star Angel Reese made a gesture to her ring finger at Clark. Reese also hit Clark with her own “you can’t see me” gesture where she would wave her hand in front of her face. The gestures went viral, sparking a massive debate on taunting in sports, and it brought major attention to women’s basketball for a hot minute.

Another interesting development in women’s sports is the upcoming NBA All-Star weekend in mid-February. On January 30, the NBA announced that a three-point contest would be held between all-time NBA three-point leader and revolutionary of the game Stephen Curry and the WNBA’s single-season three-point record holder Sabrina Ionescu. Ionescu quickly accepted the challenge, stating, “I’ll shoot from the NBA line…” on X after the NBA announced Ionescu would be shooting from the WNBA line while Curry goes from the NBA one.