For years, the case for investing in women’s sports came wrapped in the language of fairness: it was the right thing to do, the overdue thing to do. In 2026, the argument has changed — and one new media company is staking its future on it.
Versant Media, the cable company spun off from NBCUniversal in January, has made women’s sports the cornerstone of its launch strategy. Through its startup USA Sports operation, Versant has committed tens of millions of dollars in media rights to carry the WNBA, League One Volleyball (LOVB), the LPGA, and a slate of women’s college sports. This season, USA Sports will air more WNBA games than any other television platform, right as the league celebrates its 30th anniversary.
The face of that coverage is Elle Duncan, the longtime ESPN anchor who left for the upstart and now hosts USA Sports’ women’s basketball studio show. Her explanation for the move cuts to the heart of the shift: “Being in women’s sports is just a great business model,” she told Variety. What sold her, she said, was that the WNBA isn’t a side project at USA Sports — it’s the network’s marquee property, treated the way bigger networks treat the NFL.
That framing matters. Women’s leagues have historically been scattered across networks as secondary inventory, aired around men’s programming rather than built into the foundation. Versant is inverting that model out of necessity as much as conviction: as a new company built from linear cable channels like USA Network, CNBC, Golf Channel, and E!, it needs differentiated content that brings in audiences the giants haven’t locked up. CEO Mark Lazarus — the NBCUniversal veteran who previously ran NBC Sports and its Olympics machine — sees women’s sports as exactly that kind of growth engine, with real appetite from viewers, advertisers, and sponsors alike.
The volleyball bet may be the boldest piece. Versant is positioning LOVB as a candidate to become the next breakout women’s league after basketball and soccer — a meaningful signal for the hundreds of thousands of girls who make volleyball one of America’s most-played high school sports but have historically had almost no professional pathway to watch on TV.
There’s a real test embedded in all of this. If a company whose business depends on women’s sports can grow viewership and ad revenue over the next few years, the “boom” officially becomes a market. If it can’t, skeptics will call the past few seasons a bubble. Either way, for young athletes in basketball, volleyball, and golf, the scoreboard that matters is simple: more games on TV, more money in the ecosystem, and more proof that their sports can carry a network rather than just appear on one.
Source: Variety
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