Women's Sport
2024 shows spectacular growth in attendance levels as fans flock to NWSL & WNBA games
Both women’s soccer (NWSL) and basketball (WNBA) leagues have shown a dramatic increase in game going fans since pre-Covid-19 pandemic statistics.
The Covid-19 pandemic has become a watershed period of time for monitoring human behavior and this is certainly true when it comes to attendance levels at live sport events across the world.
In the United States, all professional sports leagues have seen significant growth in attendance levels since 2019, with three competitions in particular seeing their numbers skyrocket. Two of those leagues are women’s sports: the NWSL and the WNBA.
Boom for women’s sport
The USWNT led by Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan won the 2019 World Cup in France, which saw interest in the women’s game blossom as the team’s ‘Equal Pay’ movement also saw many backing the players as they raised their voices in search of a salary and conditions on a par with their male counterparts.
Morgan and Rapinoe became a major source of inspiration for many and this helped in showing greater interest levels in women’s soccer as more fans started to attend games around the country. From 2019 to 2024, the average attendance of the NWSL has grown from an average of 7,337 attendees per game to 11,235 per match which constitutes an average growth of 53% according to a study by Sportico.
The Caitlin Clark effect
The importance of having high profile female stars is fundamental in generating greater notoriety for a sport and basketball has seen how one player can cause a domino effect.
Attendance per game in the WNBA was around 6,528 in 2019 and in 2024 it has grown by 50% with an average attendance of 9,807 spectators. The arrival of Caitlin Clark at Indiana Fever earlier in 2024 has accelerated these numbers which were enjoying a positive trend before the former Iowa State player joined the WNBA. The league had its highest total attendance in 22 years (2,353,735), up 48% from last season.
MLS also shows significant growth
In men’s sports, soccer in the United States has undergone an interesting transformation, becoming more popular than ever before as the country prepares to co-host the 2026 World Cup along with Canada and Mexico.
MLS has seen this audience uplift as the likes of high profile players such as Messi, Suarez, Giroud, Reus and Lloris join MLS teams and in the Sportico study, MLS ranks third among American professional leagues with the most increase in match day audience numbers at +8%, from an average of 21,330 in 2019 to 23,235 in 2024.
MLB and NFL are next on the list both seeing a 4.4% uplift since 2109, followed by the NBA with 2.6% growth and finally the NHL with just 0.3% increase.
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