No Longer Just Fun and Games

American Demographics, May 1, 2001

For women's televised sports, men may be buoys.

Are women's sports ready for TV's major leagues?

Oxygen Media is gambling on it. In February, the fledgling cable network announced it would carry television's first-ever block of women's sports programming on weekends. The network is anteing up about 9 percent of its $85 million annual program budget, betting that a host of offerings from boxing to rodeo to rugby to adventure racing to football is one reality programming trend on the rise among women.

On the surface, the move makes sense. Participation in athletics among girls and women is certainly at an all-time high, and new leagues continue to emerge. Events like the Wimbledon women's finals and the women's NCAA basketball tournament are achieving major-league television ratings, and women's sports sponsorship has crossed the $1-billion-per-year threshold. Women represent a potential audience-base of 140 million, account for as much as 80 percent of all consumer spending, and are projected to acquire up to 94 percent of the growth in private wealth in the U.S. by 2010. Says Lydia Stephens, president of Oxygen Sports: "We've gotten a lot of kudos for attempting this, saying 'it's about time.' There was simply no continuous block of weekly programming for women's sports, a way for people to have appointment television la Monday Night Football."

But behind the hype, crucial questions remain: Will viewership of women's sports ever reach critical mass, and what will it take to get there? The answer is as complex as trying to figure out what qualifies as a balk in baseball. As audiences splinter further and further thanks to proliferating channel and platform options, diverse lifestyles, and time constraints, and the economy casts a lengthening shadow over the media and advertising environment, Oxygen's wager comes with considerable risk. For marketers angling to use women's sports to build share for their products and services, opportunities are out there, but companies need to understand the dynamics of each game and the fan base that accompanies them before entering the fray.

The viability of women's sports TV, whose crown-jewel events in 1999 and 2000 attracted about $5 million in advertising revenues, hinges on three critical challenges in the months and years ahead. For one, age demographics create a disparity in interests between women who came of age before 1972 (when Title IX outlawed gender discrimination in funding school and college athletic programs) and those born later. An equally significant obstacle to marketers is bridging the gap between people who are just plain sports fans and those niche enthusiasts who like a single specific sport. Thirdly, male support has traditionally been a make-or-break factor for sports TV, whether it's men's or women's competition. Media companies such as Oxygen, new leagues such as the emerging Women's United Soccer Association, and marketers using the telecasts and events as promotional platforms position women's sports competitions as appealing to females only at their great peril.

While common traits account for the appeal of sports to women and men alike - the unpredictable outcome, the balletic grace of athleticism, the fire and drama of competition - homogeneity among women's sports fans is nonexistent. Reflecting the caveats of many who are trying to use women's sports to resonate with readers and viewers, Sandra Bailey, managing editor of Sports Illustrated for Women says, "You have to look at each woman's sport individually." Apparently, SI for Women has begun to decipher the puzzle of women's sports, as it has more than doubled its ad revenues last year and increased its rate base by 33 percent. Fans of sports TV programs can be divided into at least two camps, according to Oxygen's Stephens. "A portion of our audience is an avid fan of sports in general, while a distinctly different group of viewers will be 'sport-specific' fans, say of figure skating or boxing or bobsledding," she says.

It is the avid sports fans, particularly men, who have proven to make up the majority of viewers, excluding exhibition-type sports such as figure skating and gymnastics. According to ESPN, more than 70 percent of the viewing audience of its Ladies Professional Golf Association programming is male, while over two-thirds of those watching the Women's NCAA basketball tournament are men. ESPN's WNBA coverage comes close to parity. In the 2000 WNBA season, 41 percent of those who watched league games on ESPN were women. Even on the major networks, which reach a broader and more varied (read: less male) audience, men are still majority viewers of women's sporting events. "Fans of a particular type of sport are fans of that sport," says Artie Bulgrin, vice president of research at ESPN, of the male fans. "So if you're a basketball fan, watching a hotly contested women's basketball game may be more compelling to you than watching a baseball game. I think the allegiance to the sport transcends gender."