In recent years, the surge in viewership and fandom surrounding women’s sports has been nothing short of remarkable and was predicted to continue into the 2024 Olympic Games. While a great deal of attention has been given to the “Caitlin Clark effect” on domestic viewership of women’s sport, her absence from the 2024 Games highlights an important truth: the growth in women’s sports viewership and fandom has not only continued to grow each year, this growth has remained consistent.
As a result, crediting overall women’s sport viewership and fandom increases to one player (and one sport) is a disservice to all of the incredible and entertaining women athletes across the U.S. and abroad. These claims discredit and foolishly overlook the dominance of athletes such as Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky, Sunisa Lee, Sha’Carri Richardson, Mallory Swanson, and A’ja Wilson; while simultaneously making the mistake of forgetting the team dominance of U.S. women’s soccer and basketball. Therefore, the viewership numbers for the 2024 Games are not at all surprising, and there were plenty of women athletes to get excited about, even if Caitlin Clark did not make the cut. Read More
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