There aren’t too many times a year when sports fans have to decide which sports to watch because there are so many options. This is one of those times of the year and the rule of thumb in my house has always been that playoffs get priority, and then regular season games, and barring that, sports with more games (like major league baseball) take a back-seat to more limited-run types of sports (like March Madness and various hockey and soccer leagues and tournaments).
It’s an exciting time to be a sports fan but our viewing decisions have become even more complex now that women’s sports have burst onto the scene in such a big way.
For me and my family, women’s sports have become the centre of our sports viewing. Why? Because they’ve been so good.
The NCAA women’s March Madness has been intoxicating to watch and I find myself planning around when the big games are so I don’t miss them. They’re really that good.
Seeing the growth of women’s sports in my lifetime was something I didn’t even know touched me as much as it has until this year. The WNBA began the year after I graduated high school. There was no dream of playing at higher levels for me because there wasn’t really anywhere to go. Sure there were college programs but they always played second fiddle to the men’s teams in the United States college system and even more so here in Canada. If you wanted to be a professional athlete and a women it was tennis or golf. That was it.
Boy have things changed and boy am I here for it!
Over the last couple of years I’ve become hooked on the NWSL, an American professional women’s soccer league. The talent is amazing, the competition is fierce, and I dare say more exciting than most of the men’s games I’ve watched. And now there’s the Professional Women’s Hockey League to get invested in too.
The best part is, my daughter is growing up in a time where she can see these strong women competing fiercely. Some have got pretty braids in their hair, others sport ponytails. Some wear makeup, others have their shorts rolled up in a specific way. They’re all expressing themselves as individual women, but they’re also very clearly athletes to the core.
My daughter will grow up knowing she can be a girl and still go out and fight hard for whatever she’s after, be it sports or otherwise. These women on TV are showing her there’s a world of possibility out there. She’s got this whole generation of role models to look up to that my generation simply didn’t have.
My idols? Bo Jackson. Michael Jordan. Ken Griffey Jr. See the trend? Sure everybody wanted to ‘Be Like Mike’ but only the boys could actually do it.
Today my list of idols would be much different. These are not just athletes, they’re trailblazers moving their respective sports forward while at the same time advocating for various other causes. These women are the definition of role models: Christine Sinclair. Alex Morgan. Marta. And that’s just soccer. Canadian hockey stars like Natalie Spooner and Marie-Philip Poulin have pushed the women’s game farther. How about the impacts made by gymnast Simone Biles or skier Mikaela Shiffrin or even more so of track star Allyson Felix?
People are just now realizing the power of women’s sports.
Iowa’s Caitlin Clarke is taking the women’s basketball world by storm with her insane shooting and passing abilities. Her team’s Elite Eight game last week against Angel Reese and LSU was the most watched women’s college basketball game in history, averaging 12.3 million viewers. That’s more than every Major League Baseball, NHL, NBA, and Major League Soccer game last season.
It’s not just Clark though. It’s Paige Buekers of UConn, Cameron Brink of Stanford, JuJu Watkins of USC, and the list goes on.
What a phenomenal time to be a women’s sports fan. I’m reveling in it. There’s room for everyone in the world of sports and now that we’re starting to see it, I absolutely love that my daughter doesn’t even understand what a big deal it really is.