It’s tempting to say, “We told you this would happen.”

For many years, female athletes and their advocates voiced their need for enhanced opportunities and visibility, only to be dismissed by those in charge who claimed there was little interest in women’s sports and that it wasn’t worth their investment. Now, the surge in growth and engagement is astonishing.

• The launch of Unrivaled, a 3×3 basketball league featuring top players and high-profile investors.
• The NCAA has recognized women’s wrestling as a championship sport.
• A new professional volleyball league is set to kick off next year, marking the fourth of its kind.
• The PWHL attracted a record-breaking 14,018 attendees at a game in Denver, making history for women’s professional hockey in the U.S.
• The Indiana Fever has announced plans for a dedicated facility for its players, featuring a massive 180,000-square-foot, three-story center.
• Chelsea is reportedly investing heavily in U.S. women’s national team defender Naomi Girma, agreeing to a record-setting $1 million transfer fee with the San Diego Wave.

And these developments are just from the last two weeks! Alongside these events, the rising valuations of NWSL and WNBA teams are notable; stars like A’ja Wilson, Caitlin Clark, and Angel Reese are all launching their own footwear lines, and media rights agreements are expanding the audience for women’s sports.

Additionally, the emerging media landscape includes various websites, content creators, and podcasts dedicated to women’s sports. One such example is “Good Game with Sarah Spain,” a daily podcast from iHeart that serves to fill the gap in the coverage of women’s sports by providing results, news, and game analysis.

“There’s a lot of frustration about what could have been achieved sooner, but I prefer to focus on moving forward,” Spain commented to YSL News Sports. “It’s not about saying, ‘I told you so,’ but rather acknowledging that the current investment in women’s sports still doesn’t match the vast economic potential.”

It is evident that the delayed response to women’s sports has cost these athletes opportunities. However, it’s astonishing how many individuals didn’t recognize the market potential for women’s sports, resulting in significant financial losses for themselves.

Consider this: only last year did FIFA start marketing media rights for the women’s World Cup separately, previously bundling them with the men’s tournament. This decision allowed ABC and FOX to attract record audiences during the U.S. women’s title runs without compensating FIFA.

During its initial three seasons, the WNBA averaged over 1.5 million households watching on NBC. However, Mark Shapiro, the former programming chief for ESPN, relegated it to ESPN2 once the league’s media rights came under Disney’s control.

“I told (NBA Commissioner David Stern) the WNBA was not performing, it wasn’t getting ratings, and I didn’t want it. No one was watching it. Not men, not women! I wanted to remove it from the airwaves,” Shapiro expressed in Those Guys Have All the Fun, a book about the network.

As expected, the WNBA’s ratings and the leverage it had with advertisers and sponsors fell sharply.

The NCAA continues to undervalue itself by including the women’s basketball tournament in a deal with 39 other competitions. This contract with ESPN provides only $115 million a year, despite analysis from 2021 indicating that the women’s tournament alone was worth between $81 million and $112 million.

A 2022 analysis from Klarna and the Sports Innovation Lab suggested that sportswear brands and retailers might be losing out on approximately $4 billion annually due to the lack of women’s sports merchandise.

If the aim is to generate profit, ignoring women’s sports is not a smart business move.

“Years back, people failed to grasp the value of women’s sports. The biggest hurdle has been convincing others of this value and the potential in the female economy,” remarked Unrivaled commissioner Micky Lawler, who recently transitioned from the WTA.

“There was a Harvard study that showed the opportunity in the female economy surpasses that of India and China combined,” Lawler noted. “We’re witnessing that opportunity unfold in sports right now.”

Shapiro, who is currently the president and COO of Endeavor, a sports and entertainment firm, insisted that his reluctance to support the WNBA was purely about ratings. He aimed to boost viewership at ESPN and wanted to steer clear of any content that could negatively impact ratings further.

“The overall level of play wasn’t prepared for the ESPN audience. There wasn’t enough sponsor backing. Had they aired on ESPN when David Stern wanted, viewers might have left and never returned,” Shapiro shared with YSL News Sports.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in women’s sports,” Shapiro explained. “I was confident it would gain traction in time. But honestly, my tenure was short-lived.”

However, the reasons provided for not promoting or investing in women’s sports are often contradictory. They claim low ratings, yet they restrict the exposure and marketing. They argue there’s no profit, yet they operate from inadequate facilities and have limited merchandise. They say fans are lacking, but they hold events in distant suburbs or inferior venues.

Women’s sports have also been unfairly held to unrealistic standards, expected to perform at the same level as their male counterparts, who have had decades, if not longer, to develop.

“It’s frustrating because we want instant change, but shifting mindsets takes years and even decades,” said David Berri, a sports economist and co-author of Slaying the Trolls. Why the Trolls are Very, Very Wrong About Women and Sports.

“People are often blinded by their biases and prejudices,” Berri noted. “They struggle to move past this.”

Now that the demand for women’s sports is impossible to ignore, many are eager to join in, as Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell pointed out. The league has secured sponsorships from several well-known brands, many not traditionally associated with women. It has also secured a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery broadcasting games on TNT and TruTV, with the opening night games achieving a respectable average viewership of about 312,000.

Each of the three new professional volleyball leagues has also established their own television contracts. Nike’s president and CEO, Elliott Hill, announced last month that the sportswear giant has “launched a women’s basketball program, something I thought we would never do.”

“If women’s sports were a stock, I would invest everything I have. Times ten,” declared Shapiro, the former ESPN executive.

All of this is encouraging. But one can only imagine the additional revenue these organizations could have reaped had they not allowed biases, ignorance, or shortsightedness to hinder their progress.

“If you’re reading this, you may already be aware of the potential. But if you hold any power or influence, or know someone who does, this should not just be an ‘I told you so’ moment. This is your opportunity,” Spain stated.

“Consider if you are truly optimizing your economic opportunities and seeking worthwhile narratives and products,” she suggested. “There are numerous resources available offering clear data to help advocate for enhanced coverage, investment, and storytelling in women’s sports.

“Make the most of it.”

Otherwise, you risk being overlooked, much like how women’s sports have been for far too long.

Follow News Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.