Ratings for women’s sports events soar, but systemic injustices still need to be overcome one by one

On April 4, 2022, local time in the United States, the South Carolina State University women's basketball team defeated the "11-time champion" University of Connecticut women's basketball team 64-49 and won the 2022 NCAA Women's National Championship.

In this traditional American sports event known as "March Madness", the ratings of women's events have soared.

According to data provided by ESPN, the game between Connecticut and South Carolina attracted 4.85 million viewers, with a peak audience of nearly 6 million. The ratings increased by nearly 20% compared with last year and by 30% compared with 2019, making it the highest ratings since 2004.

Although systemic injustices still exist, the ratings and potential of women’s events are being tapped thanks to increased resource allocation and exposure.

The increase in ratings does not only occur in individual games - compared with 2021, the average ratings of the entire NCAA women's championship also increased by 16%.

In the "Final Four" stage, the average number of viewers per game was 2.7 million, reaching the highest level since 2012, an increase of 20% over last year. During the "Elite Eight" stage, the ratings reached the highest level since 2011, with a year-on-year increase of 11%. In addition, the number of spectators in previous rounds of events also increased by 15% year-on-year.

The ratings for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Selection Show held in mid-March soared 160% compared to last year, reaching the highest level since 2005.

In 2021, ESPN will broadcast the entire NCAA Women's Championship nationwide for the first time. It is reported that in this year's broadcast, ESPN has specially arranged new prime time for the women's selection show and championship game.

In the football world, the influence of women's competitions is also growing day by day.

On March 30, 2022 local time, in the second round of the Women’s Champions League quarter-finals between Barcelona and Real Madrid, a total of 91,553 spectators watched the match at the Camp Nou, setting a new single record for women’s football. A world record for the number of spectators at a game.

It is worth noting that so far this season, the number of spectators in this "El Clasico" is also the highest among all European football matches, including men's and women's leagues.

Before the game, huge posters and murals of Ballon d'Or winner Alexia Putellas were displayed in different areas of the city, and the famous Catalan daily newspaper published the entire version of the advertisement, shouting the slogan "Let's break the world record". The support provided by all parties for event promotion played an important role in the birth of the record.

Putras called this game the beginning of a new era: "Girls will dream of becoming players and will be inspired by our players. This will be a starting point, a very beautiful thing The beginning of."

Although the NCAA has been famous for many years, in fact, it was not until 2021 that the NCAA allowed the women's championship to use the "March Madness" trademark for branding and marketing for the first time. , rights to use "March Madness"-related slogans belong solely to the men's tournament.

In March 2021, the NCAA followed the NBA in holding games in an isolation bubble and was criticized for treating male and female athletes differently.

At that time, a picture posted by a physical trainer on a social account showed that the women's training room only provided a few small-weight dumbbells, which was in sharp contrast to the conditions in the men's training room. Meanwhile, there were differences in the food and gift bags received by male and female athletes.

In August of the same year, Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, a law firm hired by the NCAA, released an NCAA gender equality report, clarifying that the NCAA had the above problems and pointed out that "even taking into account the difference in game size, the allocation to the men's basketball team There are also significant differences in the resources of the men's and women's basketball teams. The working committees of the men's and women's basketball teams operate independently of each other, with little strategic coordination or common goals. This 'siloed' nature of operations limits the NCAA's ability to provide an equitable experience for student-athletes. ability.

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In November, Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP issued another 153-page gender equality report, which found that the NCAA spent more on average for each male athlete than for female athletes. It costs $4,285 for male participants and $2,588 for each female participant.

"Combining at least part of the men's and women's tournaments would allow for more coordinated planning and increased tournament offerings," the report reads. fairness of goods, services, facilities and resources and eliminate or reduce differences between the “look and feel” of the event. ”

This report also pointed out a problem: ESPN’s payment for the broadcast rights to the NCAA women’s event is far lower than the actual value of the event, causing the association to lose a considerable amount of revenue. The company predicts that in 2025, the NCAA women’s event will The value of the basketball's annual broadcast rights is expected to be between 81 million and 112 million US dollars, which is several times higher than the amount currently provided by ESPN.