Women’s Sports’ TV Rights Boom May Have Finally Arrived

For years, women’s sports was an afterthought for TV, frequently relegated to ESPN2, Fox Sports 2 or ESPNNews, if they were able to secure TV rights at all. It was a self-reinforcing cycle of denial: Women’s sports didn’t rate, so the demand for the rights wasn’t there. But the games rarely got play on the biggest platforms, so the untapped potential could never be met.

But over the last year or so, it seems like a dam has broken, with big new rights deals for soccer and a surge of interest in women’s basketball, with both rightsholders, stakeholders, and marketers seeking a bigger piece of the action. Read More