In 2019, Anne Peterson, a journalist for the Associated Press, was covering the U.S. Women’s World Cup final in France. When the buzzer sounded, an everflowing spew of blue and gold confetti spread onto the field and across the ceremony stage. As the U.S. Women’s National Team raised their World Cup trophy, a booming 60,000-plus audience in the stadium chanted, “Equal pay! Equal pay! Equal pay!”
“It was like chills,” Peterson said. “As a woman, that was chills.”
Later that year, all 28 members of the national team filed an equal pay lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation for discrimination. Between 2016 and 2018, women’s games generated $1.9 million more in revenue than men’s games — $50.8 million compared to $49.9 million — according to financial statements obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
The USWNT’s fight for equal pay has been an ongoing issue for years, acting as one of the catalysts that triggered a new way to empower women athletes’ voices.
Tailing off of athletic empowerment in recent years, the WNBA signed a collective bargaining agreement in 2020 that tripled earnings for top players and boosted salaries to six figures for the first time.
Becky Hammon of the San Antonio Spurs then became the first woman to serve as an NBA head coach. Kim Ng of the Miami Marlins became the first to be hired as a general manager for a major league team, and Sarah Fuller of Vanderbilt University became the first woman to score in a Power-5 Conference football game.
These select women have made their mark in sports history, but many are still fighting to earn a fraction of the coverage, money and resources allocated to men’s sports, which dominate the industry. From athlete activism, to executive positions, to coaching and more, women in sports are gaining a foothold in an industry where men have had a decades-long head start.
Impact of Title IX on Women’s Sports
Passed in 1972, the original intent of Title IX — one of the Education Amendments Act that prohibited sex-based discrimination in any educational program — was to open the doors and bar discrimination for women in higher education. It wound up setting the foundation for equality for women in sports.
In 2016, girls’ high school participation rate was 10 times greater than what it was when Title IX was passed, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Both women’s and men’s NCAA championship sports participation opportunities have increased every year since Title IX was passed. In 2015-16, a record number of men and women student-athletes participated in NCAA championship sports. Even though those numbers are still increasing, participation numbers among girls have never reached the same level as among boys.
“In a perfect world, Title IX would’ve opened up spaces in the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘90s for more women to coach women’s and men’s sports at every level,” said Dr. Courtney Cox, an assistant professor at UO who specializes in women in sports. “To me, that kind of equity is what I fantasize, I dream about, and we’re starting to see that.”
The league took its first step in creating a space for women in professional football. The Arizona Cardinals hired Jennifer Walter as a linebackers coach in summer of 2015, and shortly after, the Buffalo Bills brought on Kathryn Smith as a full-time assistant coach.
The list around the league goes on and on.
Women’s sports also lag behind in media coverage. Unlike the NFL — well-known for dominating national television every weekend — women’s sports are much harder to find. Although women’s sporting events — in both collegiate and professional leagues — are common, coverage of those events in the mainstream media is not.
Women’s sports only receive 4% of all sport media coverage, according to the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota.
Over 40 years since the introduction of Title IX and there is still a lopsided disparity in gender equality within sports.
“There’s not been a time in the history of women’s sports where women were able to just play,” said former physical education director at UO and currently serves as the announcer for softball and women’s soccer games, Peg Rees. “We’ve always had to be our best advocates and fight for things we wanted.
Media coverage both in live games and televised sports news is the catalyst for exposure and combating equity problems within sports, according to Cox.
Last summer, major television networks began to cover professional women’s sports, such as the WNBA and the National Women’s Soccer League. This past 2020 season, the WNBA’s average viewership skyrocketed by 68% during a season in the “Wubble” focused on racial and social injustice. The nickname “Wubble” comes from the fact that it was the “women’s bubble” during the season.
The power of women’s activism and empowerment
The intersection of sports, politics and social justice is more prevalent than ever. The WNBA in particular, is one of the sports leagues at the forefront of it.
Women athletes have the power to create awareness to audiences, act as role models in their communities, encourage others to educate themselves and stand for what’s right.
“Athletes should be activists,” Peterson said. “Athletes should use their voice to advocate for social justice issues. That kind of activism influences the greater public.”
The USWNT’s lawsuit sets the stage for women athletes to speak out against racial, political and economic inequalities.
“For women, we have always had to beat our own drum,” Rees said. “We’ve always had to do more with less. We’ve always had to be knocking on doors for sponsorships, funding, coverage.”
To combat that, women’s sports need more allies.
“What we need right now are more allies who are willing to speak on our behalf,” Rees said. “That means men andwomen who have platforms who can lift female athletes at every opportunity.”
Peterson said her daughter has no interest in sports or any knowledge of it, but she knows who Megan Rapinoe is. She might not know how well Rapinoe shields the ball or her remarkable way of crossing the ball, but Peterson said she realizes the impact she’s had off the field.
For her and others in the younger generation, glass ceilings are continually being shattered in every sport, every season and every league as they grow older.
Shattering glass ceilings
“Being able to find those people that value your opinion, you can get their perspectives and they are willing to open up and listen to you is super important,” Sara Goodrum said. “The number one thing is, though, you have to be an advocate for yourself.”
Goodrum was recently promoted to minor league hitting coordinator for the Milwaukee Brewers, making her the first woman to have that role in a Major League Baseball organization.
Goodrum said that she looks up to Kim Ng of the Miami Marlins who is incredibly motivating for her and that she wants to be an inspiration for the next generation.
With every generation of women who want to win that World Cup, be that force for change in their community or whichever career path, society inches closer to normalizing powerful women in sports, Rees thinks.
“I’m looking forward to the time when people don’t see that as the ultimate prize in sports,” Rees said. “We need to go through this era of normalizing women at the top of men’s sports.”
As more top coaching jobs, front office and officiating positions are being filled, women are transforming sports by showing the next generation that women belongin sports. That they deserve to be listened to; to not be objectified; to have a seat at the table.
“I think about the next generation of athletes, whether they’re women, whether they’re nonbinary athletes, how they will be received within the larger sporting landscape,” Cox said. “There is still a lot of work to do, but there are things that I’m really excited to see.”
For every win in the sports industry, there are still challenges that need to be overcome. Overcoming these challenges prove that women in sports today aren’t just simply breaking through, they are soaring.
