Wave of support for women’s athletics spurs coverage
Teams in Minnesota and across the country face the ongoing debate of interest against media investment, working to make games available and accessible.
By Rachel Blood, Taylor Fruetel and Taylor Hanson
Maya Dempsey, 21, walks past a young girl on her way off the field, clad in her light blue Aurora FC quarter zip with the team’s crest on the left shoulder.
“Oh my gosh, look,” the girl says. Dempsey is just a player in her warm-up uniform heading out after a game. To this girl, she is a celebrity.
“We have these games and we get to talk to the community, because we’re for community, by community, and people are like, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re a celebrity,’” Dempsey said. “We’re just playing soccer. And it’s so cool to see these little girls that are just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to be like her,’ or, ‘I want to do what she’s doing.’ We’re just people playing. We’re just women trying to win.”
Minnesota Aurora FC is a pre-professional soccer team founded in 2022. In its last two regular seasons, the team has been undefeated and in 2022, it was named the USL W League’s “Organization of the Year.” Despite its record and awards, its games were getting little to no coverage in local news and broadcasts. Now, the soccer team is part of the wave of support for women’s athletics that’s sweeping TV contracts, attendance and coverage ranging from the Star Tribune to ESPN. Alongside Aurora FC in the battle for a piece of the media explosion:
- the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, whose coach has opened public discussion on the inequity of media coverage.
- PWHL Minnesota, where Kelly Pannek plays for a rink of over 3,000 fans.
- A Bar of Their Own, where fans sit on game nights with eyes glued to a screen broadcasting only women’s sports.
Dempsey, a junior finance major and Division III soccer player at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been with Aurora since its inception her freshman year of college. After training as a player for two years, she debuts with Aurora’s new second team — Aurora 2 — May 19, followed by the first team’s home opener at TCO Stadium May 30.
When D1 offers fell through during the COVID-19 pandemic Dempsey’s senior year, she found Hamline — despite not planning on Division III, Dempsey enjoys her time there, playing 90 minutes and finding her way onto Aurora’s lineup. Hamline Assistant Women’s Soccer Coach Jen Larrick was involved in Aurora’s founding and encouraged Dempsey to try out.
“We had no idea it was gonna turn into what it did at all,” Dempsey said. Going into Aurora, she only knew her assistant coach. As she made her way through tryouts, Dempsey watched each roster announcement on Instagram with a growing dread. These girls were good.
Goalie Sarah Fuller, University of North Texas. Defender Kelsey Kaufusi, Utah State University. Division I athletes.
There is absolutely no way that I’m going to make this team, she thought.
But she went back for her second tryout and got called back to train with the team for a week.
When Dempsey was told she made it as a training player, she was given a backpack and gear boasting Aurora FC’s teal, flash red and midnight blue — the team’s North Star logo, blocky lettering and borealis crest were created by Nicole Meyer, one of three members of an all-women creative team behind Aurora’s branding.
In May, practices are already in full swing, daily for two hours on top of weekly strength and speed training. First and second teams practice at TCO, where they have a locker room, a training house and a weight room. Aurora 2 plays at Concordia St. Paul’s Sea Foam Stadium, which can hold 3,500 fans. MLS Next Pro’s United 2 plays at National Sports Center Stadium with a 5,000-fan capacity, though the men’s team has been around since 2021.
“I really, really hope that we can get some people out,” Dempsey said.
During its first season, Aurora had a deal with WCCO-TV that gave coverage to home games only — but not every game. Fans had no way to watch away games and limited opportunities to watch home games. Aurora later moved away from WCCO to make a deal with FOX 9, allowing coverage of every home game — but still, no away games. Now, the team is in the process of reworking its deal with FOX 9 to create a streaming service where fans can access all the games. The program wants to continue pursuing bigger deals.
“Bigger deals lead to more eyes,” Davis said.
According to Dani Young, Aurora FC’s Vice President of Sponsorships and Ticketing, one of the biggest contributors to inequity in athletics is accessibility, or the lack of it.
Sports Innovation Lab dives into the Google search results relating to women’s sports teams. For two thirds of Women’s National Basketball Association teams, top searches involve how to find tickets or how to watch a game. For the men’s National Basketball Association, no top search results relate to game accessibility, both in terms of streaming and ticketing. SIL also explains “the vicious cycle,” an ongoing dilemma in which low reach and network investment leads to a perception of low fan interest, which in turn reinforces the lack of funding and coverage.
As a former National Women’s Soccer League player initially picked up by the Portland Thorns, Young started out playing professional games in high school stadiums.
“Nobody wants to go to a game at a high school stadium,” Young said. “It’s not professional. But then on top of that, the accessibility of being able to watch games on TV or see what coverage is happening, that was never there.”
Outside of the U.S. women’s national team and United 2, Dempsey doesn’t often watch soccer.
“I’d rather just play,” Dempsey said, even though she loves watching hockey and hopes to meet the players of PWHL Minnesota in the future. And although she looked up to USWNT’s Crystal Dunn, all of Dempsey’s coaches were men up until she played club soccer in Blaine.
“I just feel like a lot of the reason why I didn’t watch or have a role model or whatever growing up is literally because it wasn’t anywhere,” Dempsey said. “Like, there was no one where I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s doing amazing things and creating pathways for us to go through.’”
“People have always wanted to watch it. It’s just never been covered that well.” — Dani Young, Aurora FC Vice President of Sponsorship and Ticketing
Aurora 2’s inception season speaks to the level of interest in women’s soccer in the Minnesota sports community.
“People have always wanted to watch it,” Young said. “It’s just never been covered that well.”
Aurora FC publicist Jillian Davis started working for the team in November. In the time she’s been there, women’s sports have been on the rise. In the past five years, women’s sports coverage has nearly tripled as more people turn to streaming services to watch their favorite women’s teams. And although she hasn’t been in her position long, she’s already noticed a shift of interest from the public.
“I’m getting more calls,” Davis said. “People are calling.”
Those calls aren’t just coming from the social media soccer subculture.
“I think that the Minnesota Aurora last year became impossible for us to ignore, because they were drawing almost capacity crowds to the Vikings practice facility where they played,” Star Tribune Digital Sports Editor Howard Sinker said. “And I think that surprised everybody, including themselves.”
Davis believes people have always cared about women’s sports. In August, Nebraska women’s volleyball broke the all-time attendance record for a women’s sporting event with 92,003 attendees.
The problem isn’t lack of interest, but streaming services and other media platforms assuming a lack of popularity in women’s sports and neglecting to cover them as a result. The minute women’s sports were made more accessible, interest spikes were tangible.
Davis wants to keep that momentum going. In November, Minnesota Aurora submitted a bid to join the NWSL. Getting accepted would allow the team to go professional by 2026.
Davis believes that interest in women’s sports will only continue to grow. But she believes that this momentum for women doesn’t only have to happen in the world of sports. She wants to create a pathway for women everywhere, in every profession. She believes that once other women find their voice, awareness and change will occur naturally.
Kelly Pannek flew across the ice at the 2016 NCAA D1 Women’s Hockey championship game at the Whittemore Center Arena in Durham, New Hampshire, the University of Minnesota Gophers’ logo flashing maroon and gold on her jersey. The 3,211 fans in attendance were only able to catch a glimpse of the number 19 across her back as Pannek glided down the rink to score the team’s third goal of the night, making the final score 3–1. The Gophers took home their seventh national championship title.
Minnesota Gophers fans couldn’t watch the magic happen, unless they traveled 1,107 miles across the country and paid for a ticket to the game. Not until the delayed footage was aired nearly a week later. The state of hockey was left unaware of the plays that built the game that crowned the Gophers national champions. Young girls waited with hockey sticks in hand to watch the game that was not available.
“If enough people say something is valuable and important, that’s what I think helps shift the narrative of women’s sports,” Pannek said. “It feels like the overall sports landscape is ready for these women’s leagues to be given the coverage and platform.”
Pannek plays for PWHL Minnesota, which advanced in the playoffs after a 2–0 win against Toronto. She hit the ice again for a second playoff game May 15.
According to Pannek, PWHL games livestreamed on YouTube and available on local TV allows fans to follow something tangible and accessible throughout the season.
“It feels like the overall sports landscape is ready for these women’s leagues to be given the coverage and platform.” — Kelly Pannek, PWHL Minnesota player
Interest is reflected in the numbers — the first PWHL game in 2023 hit 2.9 million viewers in Canada alone. The fourth game of the 2023 WNBA Finals averaged 889,000 viewers, a 124% increase from the same match in 2022, according to Sports Business Journal. Just today, renowned Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut drew over two million viewers and shattered an ESPN record.
A piece of the sports media landscape
“I was probably among the first sports journalists in this area to aggressively pursue women’s sports stories,” Sinker said. “And you know, people think Caitlin Clark invented women’s basketball. I can go back to generations. The women I covered when they were in high school, some of them are grandmothers now.”
In an April 2024 interview with KARE 11 News, Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said, “The media coverage of women’s sports has been really behind. I think the greatest thing is that people have marginalized us and said it’s not a major sport. Look at the ratings, they would point to these things. What are you going to point to now?”
Sinker considers Reeve a personal hero for her steadfast drive and calling media outlets out on their lack of coverage. Despite WNBA and women’s sports coverage increasing in recent years, Reeve “is continuing to push for more,” Sinker said. “And if your job is to be an advocate for your sport, that’s what you do.”
Women’s sports fans in the Twin Cities are not confined to watching their favorite teams online. Jillian Hiscock opened A Bar of Their Own in March, a sports bar exclusively showing women’s sports.
The walls are covered in jerseys and flags from women’s teams around the state. “Watch women’s sports” is proudly displayed on banners hanging above the bar. The air feels welcoming and inclusive — it’s a place where fathers bring their daughters to watch their favorite teams. 12 televisions around the room show women’s sports games: volleyball, basketball, hockey. People laugh, eat and drink, and conversations about Caitlin Clark permeate the environment.
Hostess Kristen Hutchinsen said the bar has been busy since its March opening. For the NCAA championship game, people lined the street two hours before opening to get a seat inside. All night, there was a three-hour wait to get a table.
Hiscock’s inspiration for A Bar of Their Own grew largely from the success of The Sports Bra, a venue in Portland, Oregon — the first sports bar in the nation to show solely women’s sports. Owner Jenny Nguyen opened the bar in April 2022 and since then has inspired many more to open around the country, advocating for and increasing accessibility to women’s sports.
“I definitely also think with the hockey team — PWHL — coming out, it’s amazing to see all the support,” Dempsey said. “It’s like, OK, clearly, this is something that people have wanted forever, and we can have it now. And it’s being so celebrated. Finally there’s something that little girls can really look at and be like, ‘I wanna do that,’ and, ‘I wanna be there,’ and I feel like it’s just something that’s motivating for them to just stay in sports and wanna just try new things.”
Hamline Elementary’s field day May 3 meant Dempsey was on the field again, but not for Aurora. For an hour and a half, Hamline athletes went to the local elementary school to amp kids up about athletics.
“I just feel like it’s becoming so, so big, and I feel like Aurora has definitely paved that in Minnesota, at least.” — Maya Dempsey, Aurora FC forward and Hamline University student
Having female athletes available as role models can shape the trajectory of an elementary schooler’s life. After all, Dempsey tried out for varsity her eighth grade year because of her sister, who captained the team.
“I just feel like it’s becoming so, so big,” Dempsey said, “and I feel like Aurora has definitely paved that in Minnesota, at least.”
Young agrees. Though athletic coverage equity still has a long way to go, she feels that it’s hit a “tipping point.”
Maybe those Hamline Elementary students will join their middle and high school soccer teams. Maybe they’ll frequent A Bar of Their Own to watch women’s sports play across the screens. Maybe they’ll grow up in a world where women’s leagues are given the attention and funding they need to prosper.
Additional reporting by Amy Holmberg, Kathryn Kovalenko and McKayla Machlitt.
Rachel Blood, 22, graduated from Bethel University (MN) in May with degrees in journalism and English writing/literature. An editor, writer, reporter and graphic designer, she has been published in a range of newspapers and magazines with subject matter ranging from the schools of San Lucas to the small businesses of Carver County.
