Women’s basketball in North America has seen a meteoric rise in popularity and media coverage in the past few years. Caitlin Clark captivated new audiences with a historic run at the University of Iowa, but the surge of women’s basketball did not begin with just her. While definitely the catalyst for this movement, beneath the headlines and record-breaking performances is a foundation built by relentless women who have fought to grow the sport.
This progress was reflected this year when UBC held both the men’s and women’s U Sports Final 8 national basketball tournaments, marking the first time one school hosted both competitions.
But as the women’s game continues to reach new heights, an important question remains: why is this happening now, and what remains to be done?
At the professional level, the movement toward gender equality in sports is a recent development. The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) was founded in April 1996, less than 30 years ago, as the women’s counterpart to the NBA. Play officially began in June 1997 with eight teams, four of which still exist. The upcoming 2025 WNBA season will feature 13 teams, and beginning in 2026, the WNBA will have its first franchise in Canada, the Toronto Tempo.
Initially, the WNBA saw an immediate surge in popularity and attendance. The excitement of a new sports league and the emergence of former college stars like Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper built a solid foundation for the league. Viewership and attendance numbers eventually dropped but remained steady at around 1.5 million people for the coming decades.
However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the league struggled to regain its pre-pandemic viewership. An unexpected revival came in 2024 with the arrival of collegiate stars like Clark and Angel Reese, who substantially raised the league’s popularity and helped attract more casual viewers.
Their popularity led to record-breaking figures in both attendance and viewership. In 2024, the WNBA set an all-time record of 54 million unique viewers during the regular season and an average of 1.19 million viewers per game — a 170 per cent increase from the previous season.
Natalie Abele, a UBC alumna and a sports management instructor at the University of Portland, believes this recent surge in popularity, with the WNBA in particular, has been “a bit of a long time coming.”
“The talent [has] been there for a long time. It’s just a case that now more people are able to see it and enjoy it,” she said.
Despite women’s basketball having found increased success in both the professional and American college markets, that success hasn’t been matched in Canada.
Both the men’s and women’s championship games are broadcasted by CBC, but the difference in attendance numbers remains stark. Last year, the men’s championship game saw a 93 per cent attendance rate, 33 per cent higher than the women’s, a phenomenon also seen during UBC’s regular season.
This season, the UBC men’s basketball team drew more than twice the attendance of the women’s team — 8,073 total people compared to 3,259 — despite the latter being one of the most dominant programs in the country and boasting exceptional talent such as Mona Berlitz and U Sports Rookie of the Year Keira Daly.
While there is no single path to addressing this disparity, U Sports and UBC’s decision to host the championships at the same venues aimed to give the women’s team a greater platform to showcase their abilities than previously available.
“We’re trying to do something different and really try to elevate sport in a different way by having men’s and women’s together for the first time,” said UBC Managing Director of Athletics and Recreation Kavie Toor, shortly after it was announced in 2023. “It’s pretty special.”
As it stands, women’s basketball is in a better place than ever. After decades of work toward equal respect and treatment, players are finally receiving appropriate benefits and compensation. While many of the actions that governing bodies have taken are minor — Abele mentioned the NCAA rebranding the women’s basketball tournament with the “March Madness” logo — progress is steadily being made.
"The talent [has] been there for a long time. It’s just a case that now more people are able to see it and enjoy it,"
Last year, the WNBA allocated $50 million to provide chartered flights for its players and signed a new $200 million a year media rights deal. The WNBA players’ union also opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement so that after the 2025 season, the union will be able to negotiate for apt compensation by the league.
But while strides have been made and popularity continues to surge, years of work remain before gender equality is achieved. Abele emphasized that for things to continue in the right direction, equal media coverage is critical.
“Exposure has been really key to driving more eyeballs on the sport,” she said. “That’s what is going to attract more lucrative contracts, like media rights contracts, but also more lucrative sponsorship deals and more investment on the ownership side as well.”
Universities are in a unique position to attract new audiences to sports, potentially transforming casual spectators into lifelong fans. Through influence and leveraging “school spirit,” universities can garner large crowds for almost any sport across genders. However, we still see a trend preference for men’s games over women’s — during UBC’s national quarterfinals on March 13, the men’s team garnered 25 per cent more viewership than the women’s. In the championship finals on March 16, the men’s game had 3,604 fans in attendance, compared to the women’s 1,744.
Gender equality in sports is about more than a fair whistle on the court — it represents larger societal values of opportunity, equity and inclusion. Although the work is hard, Abele highlighted the important role that improving gender equality in sports can play in society at large.
“I think greater equality on the professional level helps trickle down in a way, to kids and youth,” said Abele. “I think [sport] breeds respect for each other. It’s just as important for little boys to see women excelling in sports as it is for little girls to see it.”
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