TV, Steaming Deals Expected To Boost Women’s Sports

In the early days of the National Women’s Soccer League, the games were streamed almost entirely on You-Tube. They usually drew just a few thousand viewers at a time. And they were largely available for free.

Ten years later, it’s safe to say the situation has changed. The NWSL has secured seven-figure broadcasting deals with CBS and Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch. Ratings are trending upward, and there’s a belief that revenue from the next deal, or deals, could be substantially larger.

“I think maybe it won’t surprise you to know that we expect significant growth,” commissioner Jessica Berman told USA TODAY Sports.

And in the world of women’s sports, the NWSL is hardly alone.

As fan and sponsor interest in women’s sports continue to grow, and the media landscape continues to shift, several leagues are also nearing the end of their current broadcasting deals. It’s a metaphorical perfect storm, a combination of market and societal factors that could lead to a TV revenue boon in the next several years.

“I think 50 years post-Title IX, we’re effectively at a convergence moment,” said Ellen Staurowsky, a professor of sports media at Ithaca College’s Park School of Communications.

“I think the sport industry understands that they’re leaving money on the table by leaving women out. We then have pushing from the other side, in terms of consumers ... knocking on the door saying, ‘Where the heck are the women?’ “ In a 2020 report, Deloitte spotlighted women’s sports as “ripe for greater monetization,” predicting that it will become a $1 billion industry in the coming years. And rights fees from TV deals are expected to be one of the main engines behind such growth.

The NWSL will be the first major entity in women’s sports to get a crack at negotiating a new contract, as its threeyear deal with CBS is set to expire next year. Berman said the league has already had preliminary conversations with the network about a renewal, but she did not offer further details about the nature or status of those talks.

The NCAA’s championships package, which includes TV rights for the women’s March Madness, is then set to expire the following year, in August 2024. And the WNBA’s current deal with ESPN runs through 2025.

As part of a wide-ranging review, sports rights consultants from Desser Media, Inc. analyzed the NCAA’s current sponsorship and rights deals — including a deal with ESPN that bundles broadcasting rights for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament with those for championships in 28 other sports.

The NCAA currently receives $34 million per year in the deal, according to the report. But Desser Media estimated that women’s March Madness, on its own, will be worth roughly three times that amount starting in 2025 — pegging its value at roughly $100 million per year.

“Our view at the time was that there’s a whole lot of untapped value here,” said Ed Desser, the sports media industry veteran whose team conducted the analysis.

The explanation is simple: The NCAA first negotiated its deal with ESPN in 2001, then re-upped it in 2011. As the deal has remained stagnant, streaming services have brought competition to the marketplace. Ratings have gone up. And there’s evidence that stronger investment in women’s sports could drive them even higher.