 Welcome to the Sports Playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I'm your host, Angela Hazelett. Today's guests are Catherine Noor, a principal of Sports Futurists and Beth Pyle, the sport management student and sports writer. Today, we're going to discuss the future of women's sports, generational perspectives. Welcome, Catherine and Beth. Thank you for joining us today on the Sports Playbook. Aloha. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Well, I'm really excited because we're representing some different generations and we're going to be talking about the future of women's sports. Let's talk a little bit about opportunities for women in professional sports. It's kind of been slow to go. Women have only been able to play at the professional level, starting back in 1974 with the women's professional football league, pro basketball league came up in 1978 and the WNBA being created in 1996. Although the U.S. women's soccer team has experienced success for some time, the National Women's Soccer League has only been around since 2012. So let's talk about the growth in women's sports and leading to more opportunities, funding and recognition. So, Catherine, do you see this as a vital shift for increased acceptance and appreciation of women's sports? I do. And I think that there's a lot of indications that we are getting there. And I will defer to Beth to provide us with the statistics for that growth. Yeah, so the growth specifically for women's soccer, they just settled an equal pay lawsuit under the terms of agreement the athletes will receive 24 million and a pledge from the Soccer Federation to equalize pay for the men's and women's national team. So this growth you're talking about is really about equity and not necessarily the opportunity to play but the opportunity to play under equal terms and conditions. Catherine, what are your thoughts on this move towards equal pay for women? I think it's everything because I think that fundamentally everyone needs to make a living and if it's unfair and if sponsors and marketers and companies are not backing women's sports in the same way they are men's, it isn't going to have the recognition and it won't have the credibility but if you pay women the same huge amounts as men and just think about it, when men get these huge contracts, it's big news. What would happen if women were on the front page of a newspaper or sports page because they landed some incredible contract? It would create a buzz and that would create an interest in following that woman's career. I'd like to see that happen and I don't know, what do you think, Beth, do you think that's possible? I think it's definitely possible. I mean currently right now we're seeing it a lot with NIL and women making millions of dollars through sponsorships and things and it's sparking so much attention towards their sport, towards their school, towards their brand that they're supporting. I think that women making all of this money that they weren't originally and getting offers for millions of dollars to pay their sport or to receive sponsorships is huge and new and I think it's going to be even more prominent in the next few years. And so NIL is really changing the game, the name image and like this for collegiate athletes, even high school athletes, but at the professional level they have that right to get the sponsorships and get those endorsements so how are we going to leverage those sponsorships and allow that money to be funneled into the leagues, into the teams and down through to the players themselves? Catherine, do you have any thoughts on that? Well, you know, I actually haven't really given that one a lot of thought. How are you going to funnel it? Well, how are we going to get, so Beth brought up an excellent point that women are getting opportunities through using their name, image and likeness and that opportunity for professional women athletes has existed, right? Maybe they haven't been leveraged to the same extent that it could be, but how are we going to get direct those sponsorships? If we're talking about the growth in the future of professional women's sports, how are we going to get those sponsorships to direct their attention towards the professional athletes? I think now we're also even sharing that revenue with collegiate women athletes. It's sort of splitting those funds into different directions now, so Beth, is there enough sponsorship dollars do you think for all of the women athletes at all levels of sport? I certainly hope so. I know that there is a lot of proof and a lot of research being done on return of investments in sponsorships. I'm not sure specifically about individuals, but I know that the LGPA sponsors just gained 400% return on their investments, which is huge. And I know that most brands, there was a study done that showed that in the UK people are more willing to purchase items or work with companies that support women's sports, which I think is really interesting. And I definitely believe that that's true. Any brand that works with a big tournament or specific athletes in general, women's athletes and women's sports are getting a lot more traction and a lot more people in general are just willing to work with those companies and purchase things from those companies. So one thing that I think that we should look at is, I mean, we haven't talked about team sports a bit, but when you're looking at individual sports, let's look at Allison Corpus, who just won $2 million in LPGA US Open. And that was about two weeks ago. What's interesting about that is the prize money was $2 million. And of course, the IRS gets a large amount. Her agent, her manager, her caddy will get their cuts. She may have fees. She's probably expended a lot of costs. So the amount that she gets will be less. However, she did get the right to enter, I think it was five additional LPGA tournaments without qualifying. And she just got second place in one on, I believe it was Sunday. But if you look at the value of that win, the US Open win, it's huge. It's exponential beyond the $2 million because her opportunity to get sponsorships and it was incredible. So the value of that could be 20 times $2 million. So there's definitely an opportunity for women to make money from sponsors. I think one thing we have to consider though is in order to make things equitable, we have to create circumstances that are equitable too. So having stadiums that will in cities and locations where ticket sales will be strong, giving them prime time lots to play and have the media be able to broadcast those games. And then we think about the WNBA and how those women have to play overseas to really either extend their season or even have not even really equitable compensation. But their season is not as nearly as long as the men's team. So Beth, what are your thoughts on creating equity in other ways other than strictly sponsorship dollars? Well, a new thing that just started that's set to start in January of 2024 is a new women's basketball league called Unrivaled. It's the New York Liberties Breonna Stewart, and I want to pronounce this correctly, Nefessa Folier of the Minnesota Lynx are launching a new women's basketball league to give WNBA players the chance to play domestically during the off season rather than playing abroad. And I think that this is a fantastic opportunity. And I really hope that it works out to their full advantage because the men's season, the W, or sorry, the NBA is just so much longer than the women's season. I believe it's over double the amount of games. And these women aren't making the same number of money or the they're not making the same amount as the men are. Their contracts just aren't as lucrative. And so being able to play during their off season and staying with their families and continuing to make money where they are, I think is huge rather than having to go completely out of the country in order to get the same experience almost as the men's league. But you know, if the season for the men's and I think it's 80 something games for the women versus I mean the men versus 30 something games for the women, is that correct? I believe so. Okay, so one question I have is why not increase the number of games for the women, especially if there's greater interest, more sponsorship? Maybe I mean, you know, I don't know why they only have so few games compared to the men, but why not expand that and make it make them equivalent in every way rather than requiring them to supplement their number of games by going overseas? Because if you look at the number of games they're playing overseas versus the number of games that they're going to play domestically, then the question is, is it the same as the men? So why not just expand it? Why do you have to create another league in order to make that equitable? Yeah, I agree. According to the National Research Group, especially when we're looking at viewership and maybe that being a big reason for why there are as many women's games throughout the season as there are men's, I think that this is super important 30% of sports fans in the US say that they're watching more women's sports than they were five years ago. So I think that whether it's this new league or whether the WNBA decides to make their seasons longer, I think that a lot more people will be willing to actually watch a longer women's basketball season, because I'm sure that that's probably the main reasoning behind the amount of women's games lacking versus the amount of men's. And some of the reasons that people are saying that they are watching women's sports a lot more than they were five years ago are because there's more women's sports being broadcasted because they have learned more about the specific females playing in these sports and have now created a bond with them. There's more press and attention around women's sports than there ever have been. And women's sports are being more talked about on social media. Social media is huge for promoting women's sports right now. Yeah, and you know what's interesting about that is that if you put the women's sports on prime time or at a time that people will actually watch, people will watch. I actually had a conversation with a client yesterday about women's sports and that we were talking about the LPGA U.S. Open and I explained that the reason why I watched is because my brother on a Sunday during prime time sports watching time, he texted me that a Hawaii player was in the lead and it was on NBC and it turned it on. Well, it was prime time for sports on Sundays. So I turned it on. Normally I get those texts from him at 6 a.m. or a ridiculous time. But this was actual and they won't be broadcast on a channel that I even have access to. They'll be on some weird satellite channel or something. So anyway, it was interesting in this conversation that I had that the reason why my client watches women's sports is because he said it's more interesting. He said that the women play with more finesse and teamwork than the men. That the men like for example basketball, all they're doing is dunking. The women actually have finesse and teamwork and it's a more interesting game. So that confirmed my suspicions that the women's game is ultimately going to be more interesting and will draw fans to watch on prime time television. It's interesting that a lot of times in women's sports, you notice that the women have this camaraderie and support of one another on the court on the field and that that does definitely change the human interest in those teams. There's also some other leagues that are growing as well. The U.S. women's soccer league has been in existence since 2012. But as of next year, they're going to get a competitor. We're talking about this growth in sports. There's a super league that's being created that's supposed to launch next year. Catherine, you had mentioned the concern for why can't these existing professional leagues extend their season and support the women athletes in that manner. But what do we think, Beth, what do you think about the fact that multiple leagues are coming up for particular sports? We have something coming up for basketball, having two leagues, something coming up in soccer, having two different leagues. What is that going to do? Is that going to dilute women's sports by having all these competitors that are in the field? What do you think about that? I don't think it will. I think that there are so many new people to women's sports that everyone's interested. I also think that everyone is different interests. And lots of different sports are throughout different seasons of the year. I think that it'll be spread out enough, hopefully, that everyone will be able to catch enough or just as much as they want to. I also think it's interesting when looking at some of the most followed people on social media, prominently women athletes, there's seven different sports in the top 10 of the most followed women's athletes. And they're not the WNBA or like this isn't your typical men's athletes with football or basketball or soccer. It's so broad. You've got tennis, soccer, cricket, gymnastics, badminton, skateboarding, and UFC are all covered in the top 10 for most followed female athletes, I think, which is really interesting. And I would hope that with the addition of all of these new league that all of those people and all of the different types of sports, I think that women's sports in general have just become so much more popular that I think a lot more people will be interested in seeing new league being built. Katherine, do you think social media is the key for these women to be successful? Read my mind. Okay, so fundamentally sports is entertainment. Okay. And what people want is to see the greatest of all time, the goat. Let's look at the number one that you were talking about, Beth, you're talking about Serena Williams. Yeah, these goats. She's amazing. She's, she has a brand. Okay. And her brand extends far beyond sports. It's expense, spends into fashion, and so much more. And then you talk about in that top tier is Simone Biles, greatest of all times gymnast. She has a brand that's amazing, but her brand is more focused on gymnast and also the Me Too movement and the Larry Nassar incident. So really, it's all about the brand. It's all about social media and and the story that emanates from these athletes. And if you look at like I talked about the US Open and Ellison Corpus, it was, it's very interesting that when you watch any kind of sports on on TV, like any, anything, Olympics, any kind of sport, you see that they do the up close and personal of the athlete and that gets you to understand their brand and to have empathy with them and to get excited and interested in following them. So you have and TikTok is really big in promoting women's sports. So you, you know, you put all this together, the, the sports on TV combined with their own brand representation on social media. And it's a powerful, it's powerful entertainment. But the stories that are being told that are promoting women are not always stories about them being athletes or them being successful or maybe not successful on it, on and off the court, right? A lot of the stories are these side stories, like you said, the Me Too movement, what happened to Simone Biles and what happened to some of these other athletes, some of the NIL deals are about women and the way they, they look and not necessarily perform. And so there is a big difference currently in how social media is talking about women versus male athletes. And another point to kind of understand is that a lot of these top women who are bringing in most of the money are individual athletes and not team athletes. So that's another factor that we need to consider. Beth, what are your thoughts on the distinction of how women versus men are talked about in, in social media and as far as like revenue earning? I think it's definitely interesting to look at women in social media versus men in social media in general. The content is different. It's a lot more about their personality rather than just their sport. And I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. Like one of the points that I pointed out earlier was a main reason people are watching women sports now more than they were five years ago is because they feel a connection to these athletes. And whether that means you're following Serena Williams and you're a mother and you really connected with her struggles and especially thinking that it's just so amazing that she was able to win a grand slam after coming back from pregnancy complications and all sorts of things or whether you're a Simone Biles fan and you really appreciated her coming out and speaking about mental health. It ranges from everything. And I think it's so important that these athletes are standing up for different things in general, being an activist, being an advocate for all sorts of different things, but especially women's sports. I think that's the one thing that they all are obviously in support of is promoting women's sports and being advocates and really just waiting awareness and helping young girls get into sports and stay in sports. I think is just a main influence and inspiration to how all of these women use social media. Catherine, do you think do you do you anticipate that there's going to be a change in the way media and fans talk about women athletes in the future on a more equitable playing field focusing on performance over personal stories? I think even with men they want to talk about the men's, the children, the wife, the family and I think media understands that viewers really want to know what's going on at home with the men. They don't want to just show them dribbling a ball or in the gym lifting weights. So seeing with women they want to show what their story is and I'm going to go back to LPGA again. Because when they do the up close and personal they show how there's a question in everyone's mind. How did that young woman take up the game of golf and be so serious and started at like six years old? How did they do that? Why did they continue and why are they at 25 years old when the US opened? Well when they talk about how their dad taught them the sport and got them into it that's an interesting story and when you're looking at compare that to men when you look at like what is their back story? Well you know that like they played with their friends you know and that's not that interesting. So I think the women's stories just have that inherent interest and as we get to know these women and women on teams too like women's soccer players women's softball and you've seen that with the Olympics you get to know those team players and you follow them. Once you understand their back story you get hooked and you follow their career. If each of you are going to speculate what the future of women's sports might look like what would you say that might be? What changes might take place? What might stay the same? Advances or maybe lack of advances really? Beth let's start with you. What do you think what do you think the future might look like for women's professional sports? I think there's going to be a lot more prime time women's sports and that kind of include I think that there's going to be eventually a network just all women's sports being broadcasted all the time and when they're not being broadcasted that there's going to be talk shows about them just like there is on ESPN but just women's sports in general if these networks don't start showing more women's sports during prime time. I think that just accessibility in the media especially on television and streaming is going to be the next huge step for women's sports and kind of creating an equal access and engaging new audience. Catherine, same question to you. You know I think it's going to get more advertising dollars infused I think more businesses are going to understand that there's a good return on investment in advertising with women's sports and I don't think it's it's going to be a quick rise but I think it'll be a gradual rise and ultimately in the distant future I think we'll even see women's sports surpassing men because it's arguably more interesting. Those are some interesting perspectives though potential growth in women's sports maybe equity or maybe even rising above men's professional sports lots of things to consider. I think we're going to have to also think about the growth of the grassroots level in order for women to be more competitive at the professional level but I also envision women getting embedded more in coaching and officiating and having representation in front offices. We see a trend towards having women even professional athletes becoming women athletes becoming owners or part owners of professional teams and even men that are professional athletes investing as owners in professional teams and leagues and so you know I see that I think the athletes see where this is heading and that they see this growth and that it is actually a good investment so they're getting it on the ground floor when maybe the price is a little more affordable so I see that more women having access at all levels in the future. So Beth and Catherine thank you so much for your time I really appreciate the conversation today and the insight into the future women's sports and the different generational perspectives. Appreciate our audience for being here today. We'll see you next time on the sports playbook. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. 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