Highlighting Women in Sports
During the first week of August, we launched our ‘Women in Sports’ campaign on Instagram, covering topics in professional sports to elevate female athletes.
We believe that ALL athletes should have equal representation in sports, pay, media coverage, and more. A recent report created by YouGov Sports regarding female athletes inspired us to address this topic and to bring awareness to people on social media.
To start this segment, we put Elena Delle Donne in the spotlight. Elena Delle Donne is an Olympic Gold Medalist and professional basketball player. She achieved her lifelong goal to become a professional athlete and became a 2x MVP WNBA player on top of her Olympic Gold Medalist title.
Sports can truly impact one’s life, whether an individual is a spectator or a player — having other females represented regularly in professional sports broadcasting can inspire one to follow their dreams too because they can see their dreams come true. Elena Delle Donne expressed her excitement for the 2020 Olympic games, stating that they are a great opportunity for young girls to witness female athletes in action in all sports. “It is so important, especially for young girls who can look and be like ‘Hey, that can be me. That’s literally my peer’”.
We then researched into some of the top female sports watched by fans across the world and were excited to share that the Women’s FIFA World Cup is the most popularly watched women’s sports in the world! The remaining top competitions enjoyed by fans across the world also included WTA and the WNBA.
When researching possible factors as to why certain women’s sports were displaying data with lower viewer counts, media coverage, sponsorships, and pay gap were the top three concerns impacting the ability for fans to have access to viewing their favourite athletes. 49 percent of global survey respondents felt that less media coverage was the major factor for inequality in women’s sports, followed by pay gap (48%) and sponsorships (47%). A lack of marketing and a lack of information or knowledge around women’s sports were mentioned as well.
Last but not least, one of the more obvious facts had to be addressed — the gender pay gap. As we all know, Conor McGregor, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo are the highest-paid athletes in the world, with $180 million, $130 million, and $120 million, respectively. There is a pay discrepancy of $216.6 million between the world’s Top 3 male and female athletes. According to Forbes, with $60 million, Naomi Osaka ranks No.12 among the 50 highest-paid athletes while Serena Williams is No.28 with $41.5 million. It is the first time since 2016 that two women have made the ranks of the 50 highest-paid athletes.
At FANZONE, we are proud to have the opportunity to have digital trading cards (NFTs) of numerous professional women athletes. In our Football zone, you will be able to find Germany’s Women’s National Football Team as well as VfL Wolfsburg Women’s Football Team. FANZONE stands for equality and commits to making sure this is represented throughout our platform.
Times are changing and the coverage of professional women’s sports is beginning to improve. We will continue to advocate for continuous growth in this area. We are looking forward to being a part of this change too. Equal play deserves equal pay and representation across the world.
Follow us into the future at FANZONE. Collect, play, trade, and do good!
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ABOUT FANZONE
FANZONE Media GmbH develops and operates a novel fan experience platform that combines digital trading cards and fantasy sports gameplay on the blockchain. On fanzone.io, users can buy, collect, trade and use the digital trading cards of their favorite sports stars in different game variants. Porsche’s company builder, Forward31, is the strategic partner of FANZONE.
Founders Dirk Weyel, Claudio Weck and Björn Hesse bring decades of experience in games, sports marketing and blockchain technology to the table. More on www.fanzone.media
For media inquiries to FANZONE, please use Björn Hesse’s contact bjoern@fanzone.media / +49–162–4046257
Fans can follow FANZONE via social media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter @fanzone_io as well as on LinkedIn, Discord and Telegram.
