A commentary by a former editor-in-chief of Triathlete Magazine who has covered multiple world championships and playoffs.
Men’s baseball, basketball, football: these sports are all grappling with declining numbers and waning interest among younger viewers. At the same time, female athletes’ have more opportunities than ever, more excitement, more energy.
If our sports are going to find new audiences and new stars, then it’s going to have to come from somewhere new. If our sports are to have a growing future, then the future will look female.
This spring, 12.6 million viewers tuned in to the U.S. collegiate women’s NCAA March Madness championship game. It was the most watched college sporting event ever on ESPN+, the company’s streaming platform, and was aired on network TV in the U.S. for the first time in decades.
As pundits and internet commenters argued about the players, the calls, the trash-talking, women’s basketball didn’t just take center stage in the sports world, it dominated the conversation and brought in countless new fans thanks to two brash new stars.
This past week, the WNBA opened its 27th regular season — also setting viewership, revenue, and attendance records — at a time when the NBA is wrapping up its season struggling to retain fans.
Yes, the NBA has been around longer and still does bigger numbers. And yes, the playoffs brought in viewers (and will continue to do so), thanks to key markets and superstar names, but it’s clear where the trend is headed and where the next generation of new fans, young fans, is coming from.
Those players and fans of tomorrow are being created today. There are very nearly as many girls as boys who play youth basketball.
That means our future stars need somewhere to play now, somewhere to develop and gain experience now, somewhere to set the stage for the wave that is coming. And our future fans need somewhere to watch them, to grow into the sport with them, to see what they can become.
On Friday night, that stage will be in Victoria when the 91原创 national team tips-off against Tokyo Olympics silver-medallist Japan at Save-On-Food Memorial Centre.
It’s the first step in 2024 Paris Olympic qualifying, as the 91原创 team prepares for the important FIBA AmeriCup in July. It’s the first time Victoria has hosted the women’s team in decades.
Canada has come a long way since the late 1990s but there’s still so much more room to grow.
For some of the newest players on the national team — and there are many of them on a young team — this game in Victoria against a highly-ranked Japanese squad will be a chance to learn the skills they need for the pro level and world stage.
High school stars like Syla Swords and Jasmine Basco get a chance to grow in superstars they could become. For former WNBA players and Olympians, such as Kayla Alexander or Nirra Fields, it’s the rare chance to play in front of a home crowd.
With no homegrown pro league, 91原创 stars seldom get a chance to play star-level basketball here in Canada.
Teams, players, need these games to become the best they can be. But fans need them, too. You need to be able to say that you saw these players back when, that you were there.
The WNBA held a test game in Toronto a few weeks ago between the Minnesota Lynx and the Chicago Sky and sold out a packed stadium, full of youth teams and young kids.
Those fans can only be fans of what they know about. They can’t root for players they’ve never heard of or cheer at games they’ve never seen.
How many basketball diehards swear now they saw LeBron back when he was still a high school player? How many fans are following French teenager Victor Wembanyama’s current drafting saga?
It’s because they’ve grown attached to those narratives. There are new narratives playing out right now and they’re the stories of the future.
With just four 91原创 players in the WNBA — and unable to leave the league at the start of the season to join Team Canada — we turn our attention to the players who could be next, such as Aaliyah Ewards, Yvonne Ejim, Merissah Russell and Aislinn Konig. Or maybe you’ll be inspired, scream, cheer for one of the other stars coming on the court.
Women’s basketball is at an inflection point, ready to bring in a generation of young fans who have never seen themselves in the sports’ superstars before.
The appetite is there. We just have to give them games to remember, to build on.
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