Tom D’Angelo | Palm Beach Post
At first, it was a wave. Then, it turned into a tsunami.
Now, the increase in popularity and exposure is everywhere in women’s sports, in large part thanks to Caitlin Clark.
Clark turned the NCAA women’s basketball tournament title game into a more popular watch this year than its men’s counterpart (18.9 million viewers to 14.8) while playing for Iowa, and as a member of the Indiana Fever single-handedly pushed the WNBA into the sports mainstream.
But Clark is not the only one responsible for this movement. More, many more, athletes and executives have contributed to 2024 being the Year of the Woman in sports.
- Tennis star Coco Gauff of Delray Beach was the highest-earning women’s athlete for the second consecutive year, netting a reported $30.4 million.
- Swimmer Katie Ledecky became the most decorated female American Olympian of all time, winning four medals in Paris – two gold, one silver, one bronze – to add to her 10 previous Olympic medals.
- Gymnast Simone Biles took home three golds and one silver from Paris, bringing her career total to 11 Olympic medals, including seven gold.
- Jessica Campbell became the first female coach behind the bench in NHL history after being hired by the Seattle Kraken.
- The Pro Women’s Hockey League brought in nearly 400,000 fans in its inaugural regular season, including a record crowd of 21,105 in Montreal for a game against Toronto.
- The NFL saw the first matchup between teams with female presidents when Kristi Coleman’s Carolina Panthers faced Sandra Douglass Morgan’s Las Vegas Raiders.
- LPGA Player of the Year Nelly Korda won seven times on tour, was a member of the winning U.S. Solheim Cup team and captured her second major.
- Locally, Wellington resident Rebecca Hart won three gold medals in dressage, equaling the most golds of any U.S. athlete at the summer Paralympic Games in Paris.
Deloitte has predicted that this year women’s elite sports will surpass $1 billion in global revenues for the first time, generating $1.28 billion.
“We have seen exceptional growth in women’s sport across the globe, driving a significant uplift in its commercial value, which in turn has led to growing interest from investors,” said Jennifer Haskel, insights lead for Deloitte’s Sports Business Group.
The growth in popularity and interest in women’s sports heads our list of things we loved to see about 2024 when it comes to sports.
Here are some things we’d like to see in 2025: