David Berri? This one is particularly for you.
It is a common criticism we hear all the time – no one watches women’s sports.
The idea of women’s sports supposedly failing to draw the ratings and attendance of their male counterparts is a huge reason why detractors of leagues such as the WNBA, PHF and NWSL simply want these leagues to fold.
Oh, and then there is our most favorite that applies specifically to women’s basketball – people that say they do not watch because of the lack of dunks.
We gracefully shredded these “dunkers or clunkers” in an earlier Beyond The W piece we penned earlier this calendar year. But let us address the ratings part specifically.
The truth of the matter is ratings for women’s sports – including the WNBA and the women’s college game are up. Interest is up. Attendance is on the rise. Media coverage is also on the rise. We are talking about women’s basketball games now drawing in the millions of viewers.
The Women’s World Cup later this year is poised to shatter viewership records. Male detract…nah, let us not mince words and call them directly what they are…INCELS will go and say that they are not drawing the ratings of the Super Bowl or the College Football National Championship.
The most optimistic of women’s sports fans are not expecting women’s sports to draw those types of ratings because they are intelligent enough to understand that Rome was not built in a day.
Here is what is interesting, though. There are high-profile men’s sports leagues that would do plenty of illicit things to draw even WNBA-style ratings and WNBA-style interest.
Let us start with LIV Golf, which is backed by a bloodthirsty Saudi Arabian government that may or may not have its crusty eyes as well on the WWE. LIV Golf has managed to lure many an ex-PGA Tour participant to its ranks because of the money it is paying these golfers.
LIV Golf’s television deal in the US is with The CW Television Network. Nielsen reported that LIV’s inaugural weekend only drew a grand total of 291,000 viewers – including less than 10,000 viewers in the New York market.
The New York Liberty can easily average that and then some this upcoming season in terms of Barclays Center ATTENDANCE.
And yeah, Saudis. WWE’s Liv Morgan and the LIV Nightclub in Miami are the only LIV’s we acknowledge.
Ok, so it is golf – an outdated sport whose standing with sports fans below the age of 40 was severely damaged due to its close association with the former guy. Let us try another sport that should do better in the ratings.
Football – more specifically, the XFL. America loves football, right?
Right?!
Yeah…no. America only loves football during the fall and winter months. Week 1 of XFL 2.0 averaged 1.3 million viewers on ABC, ESPN and FX, but those number plummeted to around 655,000 viewers and those numbers were reportedly lower for Week 3.
A tweet from Mike Mitchell at Fansided suggests that a recent XFL game only drew just over 6,000 fans in a stadium that has a capacity of over 9,000. Substitute these for WNBA teams and the “no one watches” memes from these incels would be ad nauseum.
It is already crystal clear looking at LIV and XFL’s low ratings that these are two leagues that they do not move the needle for American viewers. It is also crystal clear that these two leagues do not get the chorus of hate from incels that women’s sports leagues simply because those that play in the XFL and at LIV have one Y chromosome.
Oh – and let us throw one more tidbit in here that will really get the women’s sports-loathing incels in a tizzy. Remember that Minnesota Lynx-Chicago Sky game at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena that will take place prior to the start of this year’s WNBA season?
Tickets for that matchup sold out in less than one full day.
It makes us laugh when fans of hand-me-down men’s leagues like the XFL and LIV Golf pile on women’s sports when the reality is…
These leagues WISH they were the WNBA right about now.
