Featured Image: Emily Uzzle | Marlin Chronicle
If you have been paying attention to women’s sports this year, you would know two events of major attendance occurred. The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and, a little closer to home, the University of Nebraska Women’s volleyball team.
The Nebraska Huskers held a game inside Memorial Stadium, which is the school’s football stadium. At that game, the team set a Guinness World Record for women’s sports attendance with a sold out crowd of 92,003. They were set to break the record when the game was announced this past spring. According to an article posted by CBS News, people were selling tickets on secondary websites for hundreds of dollars.
This huge crowd has amplified the discussion surrounding people ignoring women’s sports or the opinion that women’s sports are more boring than men’s sports.
Similar can be said for the FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) Women’s World Cup and its ticket sales. When tickets went on sale early in the year for the tournament that took place over the summer, over half a million tickets were sold in just a couple weeks, the FIFA website said. Then closer to the tournament, another 200,000 tickets were sold for the highly anticipated tournament that saw Spain win their first World Cup with a 1-0 victory over England.
This new wave and interest in women’s sports isn’t just in ticket sales and more people wanting to go to games in person, it’s also on TV.
During the 2023 NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Women’s National Championship game between LSU (Louisiana State) and Iowa there were record-breaking TV views. According to the Nielson website, there were 10 million viewers for the game between LSU and Iowa which is a 103% increase from 2022.
The Women’s Super League, which is the top flight of professional soccer in England, had an increase of 81% in viewing. In fact on Sunday, Oct. 1, the first day of the 23-24 WSL season, the Arsenal and Liverpool Women set a new WSL record for official attendance at a game with 51,115.
I think the view that women’s sports are not interesting and that their games are boring is being thrown out the window, because it is obvious that over the past couple years the interest has increased, and it should stay that way.
By: Colette Kearney
