Why Women's Sports Are a PR Goldmine Right Now

By: Anusha Agarwal, Account Supervisor

I'll be honest. Not too long ago, if you pitched a client on sponsoring a women's sports league, you'd probably get laughed out of the room. "Nobody watches," they'd say. "The numbers aren't there." And for a while, that was at least partially true. But something has changed, and if you're studying PR or marketing right now, paying attention to this shift might be one of the most useful things you can do.

The "Nobody Watches" Argument Is Dead

Nielsen released a report just this month showing that Americans consumed 46 billion minutes of women's sports in 2025. The NWSL Championship hit over a million viewers on CBS, a first in league history. The women's hockey gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics peaked at 7.7 million viewers. The US Open Women's Final was up 50% in viewership over the year before.

And this isn't just one sport riding one superstar's wave. Basketball, soccer, tennis, softball, volleyball: they all posted gains last year. The audience is real, it's growing, and it skews young, which is exactly the demographic every brand is desperately trying to reach right now.

What I find most interesting from a PR perspective is how people follow women's sports. Fans no longer just follow teams; they follow the athletes as people. They watch their Instagram stories, they care about what they think, and they feel genuinely connected to them. That kind of relationship between an athlete and their audience is incredibly valuable for brands, and it's not something you can just buy your way into overnight.

Most Brands Haven't Caught Up Yet

Here's the wild part: despite all of that growth, only 6% of Fortune 500 companies currently sponsor women's sports. The global market hit $2.35 billion in 2025 – more than double what it was just two years ago, but sponsorship spending hasn't kept up. That gap is basically a giant opportunity sitting in plain sight.

The brands that have invested are seeing real returns. 86% of women's sports sponsors said their investment met or exceeded expectations. WNBA Changemaker partners averaged 286% ROI. Ally Financial made a public commitment to women's sports a few years ago and saw their brand likeability go up noticeably among fans as a result. These aren't tiny niche numbers anymore.

The brands that figure this out first are going to look like geniuses in five years. The ones that wait are going to be paying way more to get in.

It's Also Just... Authentic

This is the part that I think matters most for PR specifically. We're in an era where audiences, especially people our age, can immediately tell when a brand is faking it. A company tweeting about women's empowerment while putting zero dollars toward women's sports doesn't land the same way as one that actually shows up consistently.

Athletes like Angel Reese, A'ja Wilson, and Trinity Rodman have real personalities and real opinions. Their fans trust them because they're not performing some polished, brand-safe version of themselves. When a brand genuinely aligns with athletes like that, it means something greater. Research from Parity found that women's sports fans are nearly 3 times more likely to buy a product recommended by a female athlete than by other types of influencers.

The Media Is Catching Up Too

A big reason women's sports were easy to dismiss before was the lack of TV coverage. That excuse is gone now. Amazon just signed an 11-year deal with the WNBA starting this year. The NWSL's new broadcast deals were worth 40 times more than their previous ones. Starting in 2026, every single LPGA event will be broadcast live nationally for the first time ever.

More coverage means more stories to tell, more moments to pitch around, and more opportunities for brands to put effort into campaigns that actually reach people. From a PR standpoint, that's a lot of new real estate.

The Bottom Line

The brands and agencies that are going to win in this space are the ones moving now, while it's still early enough to stand out. As someone studying PR, I think this is one of those moments worth paying close attention to, because the professionals who understood this shift early are already building the case studies the rest of us will be reading in class in a few years.

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About the Author

Anusha Agarwal is a junior studying Public Relations at Boston University, originally from Singapore. She serves as an Account Supervisor on both the DEXA Scan Boston and The Boston House accounts at PRLab. Outside of PR, Anusha is a big sports fan – which is probably why she had a lot to say about women's sports.