This year, women’s sports have been getting more attention than in the past, especially the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). According to the Associated Press, stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have driven viewership up to the millions for WNBA games. This comes after a long period of men’s sports getting much higher viewership, which women’s sports were not able to compete with.
Senior Frances Sarrat has been on LASA’s varsity girls basketball team for four years. She enjoys watching Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever and other popular players, like Breanna “Stewie” Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty.
“Caitlin is in her moment right now, had her moment, but the attention she was getting also helped shed light on to the other players in the WNBA, like Stewie and Ionescu,” Sarrat said. “The last March Madness for women’s college basketball was huge… I was so excited to watch those games. I think that pushed me, especially this year, to continue following those players and seeing what happens next.”
The increased popularity of female athletes has not been entirely well received, however. Taigan Rivers plays women’s handball at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. As a female athlete, she is glad that the unique qualities of women’s sports are getting more attention as Caitlin Clark enters the national spotlight, but also believes that the popularity of her WNBA rival Angel Reese and her reputed unsportsmanlike conduct on the court feeds into negative perceptions of WNBA players.
“[Clark’s style has] definitely gotten more people to watch, but at the same time we’ve had some negative people come up,” Rivers said. “In my opinion, Angel Reese, her aspect of the game, and how she plays, especially since joining the WNBA, I feel like it negatively affects women’s sports, because some of the things they say, she feeds into it. I personally think that she wouldn’t be that way, but she feeds into what people say, and so it makes her play and act the way she does.”
Liv Mitchell is a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) who plays intramural volleyball. She hopes that, with the current momentum and media limelight the WNBA and UT women’s volleyball are receiving, women’s sports will reach the same level of popularity as men’s sports.
“Especially here, our volleyball team is so good,” Mitchell said. “Logan Eggleston, Asjia O’Neal, they’re all moving on to professional volleyball and playing professional sports teams, and I think people started watching them a lot more because we have really dynamic, advanced athletes who can do amazing things and people are more inclined to watch them now.”
Mitchell believes that the skill of female athletes and the effort they put into their sport often go unnoticed because men often have more physical strength and size and certain natural advantages, such as jumping high and running quickly. She hopes Clark will help people recognize what women can do as well.
“She’s definitely brought more attention to women’s sports and the WNBA,” Mitchell said. “I think people have been following her journey a lot. I honestly feel like people often highlight the athleticism of men’s sports just because a lot of times they can do more.”
According to Sarrat, increased attention can bring inspiration to many, as seeing a star of your dream career go big is a jumping off point for inspiration. Especially for young girls, Sarrat believes the hype building around women’s basketball has paved the way for the next generation of aspiring athletes to come.
“Seeing it get so much attention and recognition definitely gives a lot of young girls the feeling of, ‘oh, this is something I can do one day,’ and it’s never really happened before for girls’ basketball so it’s really awesome to see that,” Sarrat said. “[It’s good to see] the support that it’s gotten and knowing that they can get to that point and that that’s an option.”
The 2024 WNBA Finals were played from October 10 to October 20, with the New York Liberty beating the Minnesota Lynx in a best-of-five series to win the 2024 WNBA Championships. The college women’s basketball season, however, started in November 2024 and will continue into March 2025. For Rivers, while many criticize women’s basketball for not being as entertaining as their male counterparts, she hopes women’s basketball’s continued media attention will nonetheless attract new, open-minded fans of the sport.
“Most people, they like the show stoppers, the dunks, the deep threes that win buzzer beaters,” Rivers said. “And that’s typically not what you find in a women’s game. And that’s not bad, we’re just different people… if people just learn more about the sport or take interest in how the sport is played rather than just watching it to watch it, then they’d see how good women’s sports are.”
