How Women’s Sports has Evolved in the United States
Over the past twenty-years, women’s sports have dramatically increased through professional organizations driving spectator viewership. Before the 1970’s women’s sports were almost nonexistent. There were few women who wanted to play sports and even fewer who actually did. During this time period, women were only believed to be good at cooking and cleaning which impacted the opportunity to form programs geared towards women’s sports. In 1974 the Women’s Sports Foundation first opened which led to the development of women’s sports across the nation. All women’s sports have evolved since the 1970’s but the ones that has evolved the most are basketball, soccer and football.
Football has always been known as a male sport just because of how physical the game is and many Americans believed it was to much for females. In the 1970’s, becoming a football player was not even an option because of they way people thought of women back then. The interest started growing and in 2000 the National Women’s Football League was founded. The name was changed in 2002 to the Nation Women’s Football Association because of the pressure from the National Football League. There are now multiple leagues that are for women’s football because of the constant increase of interest in this sport. The teams come from all over the county and all competitively compete with each other. In 2017 there were over 4,000 women football players in the United States and the number has kept growing since then. More and more youth leagues start each year which ultimately helps increase the players because they have the opportunity to become interested in the sport starting at a young age. The sport is not televised on the main sports channels because the sport has not grown big enough and does not have enough interest in the sport for it to be televised. This also causes women to not become interested in a sport they think is only for men because they are not able to access it as easily as a sport like basketball of soccer. Although mens football is still more popular than women’s football will probably ever be, the constant increase of participants in this sport continues to encourage females they can play a sport thought to only be played by men.
Basketball is a very popular sport for men and women but the women teams often get overshadowed by the men’s teams. The female side of the sport started in 1892, which is much earlier than other female sports. Although women became interested in this sport faster than others, the WNBA did not start until 1996, over 100 years later. Before the creation of the WNBA, very few women were interested in playing basketball because they knew there was nowhere to go after finishing playing college. Now there are 12 teams in the WNBA but the NBA is still more popular with 30 teams. The number viewers is also different with the WNBA at 413,000,000 viewers per game and the NBA at 1.46 million viewers per game. College basketball has also gotten more popular among women with more scholarships given and the competitiveness of the sport has increased causing the interest to increase. At the NCAA division I level, there are 351 basketball programs and 313 NCAA division II schools. The youth leagues have also increased in the past 5 years because of the increase in professional interest growing. College and professional women’s basketball team still get overshadowed by the men’s college and professional team but the female side of the game is slowing growing interest for all Americans.
Another sport that has become popular is soccer. This sport did not start as early as basketball or even women’s football but still has a great amount of interest in all ages. The National Women’s Soccer League did not start until 2012 and only have 9 professional teams while the men’s Major League Soccer league has 24 teams and started in 1993. The number of players per team has recently been increased from 20 to 22 per team because of the growing interest. The recent championship with the Portland Thorns defeating the North Carolina Courage 1–0 brought 132,000 viewers which was the most viewers to watch an NWSL game. The regular season only averaged 92,000 people per game which is significantly lower than the championship game. Another female soccer team that has grown over the years is the United States Women’s National Team. This team is highly competitive and played their first game in 1985. They have won 3 world cups since them including the first World Cup in 1991. The team is a very successful women’s soccer program because the sport has not been the favorite in many other countries. They have appeared in 6 Olympic competitions and won gold four times. The success of this team has increased the interest for kids playing. Many kids start playing when they are around 5 years old and have a goal of soon playing competitively because they can watch other women have a successful career playing this sport and believe that could happen for them.
In almost every sport, the women’s side of the sport has increased dramatically in the past few years. In most of the sports, the youth programs . have increased which has helped the college and professional leagues increase as well. In the 1800’s there were very few females who wanted to participate or did participate in any sport. Since the 1970’s, the number of interested Americans has almost doubles in about every sport which should double again because now parents are encouraging young girls to become active and play sports. On ESPN, women’s sports only receive 5% of the coverage because many people believe that women’s sports generate enough interest in women’s sports to cover it more. Most women who play professionally in any sport has played that sport since they little and because of the increase in interest in sports starting as a child has increased the number and ability of athletes. The ones that has increased the most was football, basketball, and soccer but almost every sport has grown in the past 50 years.
-Madisyn Portsche
Sources:
“FIFA Women’s World Cup.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_Women%27s_World_Cup.
Kessel, Anna. “There’s a Huge TV Audience for Women’s Football. It’s Time to Capitalise on It | Anna Kessel.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Aug. 2017, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/tv-audience-england-womens-football-lionesses.
“Women’s National Basketball Association.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_National_Basketball_Association.
