It seems you can’t look anywhere without hearing about the growth and profitability of women’s sports. The refrain has gone from “no one watches women’s sports” to “everyone watches women’s sports” in a matter of just a few years. For longtime fans of women’s basketball, women’s soccer and women’s hockey, the meteoric growth of leagues like the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) can feel exciting. But with all this growth comes more complicated feelings too.

The argument for investing in women’s sports often falls along capitalist lines such as “there’s money to be made here, and it would be unwise to pass it up.” A new report from Deloitte estimates that global revenue generated by elite women’s sports will exceed £1.8 billion (approximately $3.3 billion in Canadian dollars) in 2025. With investment opportunities increasing exponentially, women’s pro sports leagues are signing sponsorship deals with major companies left and right. However, which brands these leagues are choosing to partner with now that there is money available is increasingly at odds with the presumably progressive values these leagues have been perceived to have by long-time fans. 

The WNBA players, in particular, have made a name for themselves with their commitment to racial justice activism and social justice advocacy cause that they dedicate each season to (there is even a documentary about their activism, called Power of the Dream). In women’s soccer, the U.S. Women’s National Team’s fight for equal pay often transfers to perceptions of the NWSL because many of the same players are represented. Even though those values and actions come from the players themselves, the public perception often applies those views to the leagues as a whole. In the public sphere, the distinction between the league (a corporation with its own interests in mind) and the players (individual workers with their own views) is often flattened.   

Take, for example, the WNBA, whose season starts this week. It will be the league’s most talked-about season since its launch nearly 30 years ago. With a brand-new team in the Golden State Valkyries and Canadian expansion set for 2026 with the Toronto Tempo, all eyes are on the W and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Their partnership with Amazon Prime to stream games is continuing this season, with 25 games streaming on the platform. The WNBA isn’t the only league with an Amazon partnership either. The NWSL also streams games on Prime.

But the NWSL’s partnership with Amazon is baffling when you consider that it is a league currently in the process of a rebrand following their disturbing sexual abuse scandal and continued and ongoing workplace harassment crisis. Not only that, but the league has leaned heavily on lip service around progressive values in order to change the public’s perception of it and has benefitted mightily from that strategy.

“Under [Commissioner Jessica] Berman’s leadership … the NWSL has become a sporting beacon of social and political activism,” a 2024 report from SportsPro explained data from Luscid, a platform that tracks sport and entertainment data, measured “the league’s key marketing strengths”—which included “community impact”—and cited Amazon as one of the blue-chip companies the league has signed recently. These new partnerships moved the total annual value of the NWSL’s portfolio to over $24.5 million—a fourfold increase from 2021.

But why would a league that is being heralded as “a beacon of social and political activism” think that partnering with Amazon would align with its values? Amazon is well known to be a company that, among other things, exploits workers, puts them in unsafe working conditions, helps fund ICE, has a terrible environmental record and is single-handedly responsible for killing bookstores. Perhaps for the same reason they thought their new partnership with Alex Cooper’s Unwell Hydration drink was a good idea? Cooper, the host of the popular Call Her Daddy podcast, is a former employee of Barstool Sports and has done little to distance herself or her brand from Barstool’s toxic and offensive content in the years since she left the company. Not only that, her Unwell Hydration beverage is a Nestlé product, which is currently the subject of multiple boycotts for reasons that include political, environmental and human rights concerns. In Canada, the company faces boycotts from the Council of Canadians and the indigenous rights organization Lakota People’s Law Project for extracting water from watersheds that have recently seen droughts. All of the leagues have at least one official partnership with a company that is on the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) list.

Or take the glut of weight-loss drug ads that permeate women’s sporting events. During the PWHL’s “Takeover Tour,” in which the league travelled to host cities who don’t have their own teams in order to promote the game, ads for Wegovy could be seen on in-game monitors. The WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx have a partnership with the weight-loss program Livea and the Indiana Fever have an Eli Lilly patch on their uniforms (Eli Lilly is the company that produces the GLP-1s Mounjaro and Zepbound). These drugs, when advertised to treat “obesity” as the presenting problem, can promote fatphobic and dangerous body image ideals—especially for the young girls watching at home, who represent the fastest-growing fan demographic.

Even the rash of new beauty campaigns is not without concern. As makeup companies like Sephora sign partnerships with Unrivaled, the off-season women’s basketball league, and WNBA teams like the Toronto Tempo, Fenty Beauty becomes the official sponsor of the WNBA’s New York Liberty and Maybelline Cosmetics partners with the new Women’s Lacrosse League, centuries-old anxieties about women athletes and femininity are reinforced. Masculine-of-centre athletes get far fewer endorsements and brand deals, reinforcing oppressive hierarchies and income disparities, as well as perpetuating queerphobia.

The financial consequences of these regressive beauty standards would be concerning enough on their own, but in a time of increased “transvestigations” of women athletes, the focus on platforming traditionally feminine athletes is far more insidious than it may first appear. Trans women and girls are increasingly being viewed as a threat to not only women’s sports, but to the safety and security of cis women as a whole, which is quietly reinforced by the focus on these highly feminized beauty campaigns.

It’s also insidious because brands are capitalizing on a highly motivated and incredibly trusting market in women’s sports fans. Research has found that WNBA and women’s sports can “enhance a brand’s image by demonstrating its commitment to social responsibility, gender equality and empowerment.” When a company advertises with one of these leagues, those values become associated with their brand, too. Nielsen’s Fan Insights found that 44 percent of WNBA fans have visited a brand’s website after seeing WNBA sponsorships during a game and 28 percent have bought from a sponsoring brand. Ads aired during the 2024 WNBA regular season through the end of May were a remarkable 26 percent more likely to spark consumer engagement than the 2023 WNBA season average. And women athletes are far more likely to convert buyers than their male counterparts, with a recent study revealing that U.S. consumers are more likely to purchase sports tech products from Caitlin Clark, Simone Biles and Serena Williams over comparable male athletes.

And yet, sponsorships and endorsements, which are only really given to the most elite teams and athletes, inevitably worsen systemic inequalities like sexism, racism, transphobia, classism and ableism. “Just as in men’s sport and wider society, it is the ‘ruling elite’ who control elite, competitive, commercialized sport, that stand to gain the most when growth is the primary objective,” Evie Ashton wrote in the It’s Just a Game newsletter. “When elite sport makes more money, financial brokers, shareholders, wealthy top executives, conservative politicians and upper-middle class people extend their power.”

The evidence for this can be seen in the names who are buying into pro women’s teams. Last season, Julia Koch, an American socialite who is one of the richest women in the world, and her son, David, Jr., bought a 15 percent stake in the WNBA’s New York Liberty. The move to sell part of the team to the Koch family raised eyebrows among fans, some of whom launched a petition asking Koch to donate $15 million of her own money to causes supported by WNBA players. The petition was started by started by the folks behind the Women’s Sports Rally social group.

WNBA players care about who they play for and who represents them—the WNBA’s social justice initiative for the 2024 season involves reproductive justice and civic engagement. The Kochs have a long history of making donations to political candidates that often work against these interests, donating exclusively to Republican candidates. Meanwhile, the NWSL team Angel City FC, which made its name being a majority-women-owned club, was sold to Disney CEO Bob Iger.

“The men’s pro sports model didn’t rise out of a neutral condition; it owes its success to empire and oppressive conditions which were explicitly designed to sustain it and which are protected by the most powerful people in society,” Zoë Hayden wrote at The Victory Press in 2019. “Women’s sports … were not meant to succeed under these conditions, and in an attempt to do so, they both intentionally and unintentionally align themselves with empire and with capitalism instead of trying to change the conditions themselves.” As a result, women’s sports leagues come to reinforce oppression rather than becoming the forces for social, political and cultural justice that they have the potential to be.”

All of this raises larger questions around whether women’s sports finding mainstream success is at odds with the stated values of its players—and its fans. At the same time, it’s a double-edged sword: true equality means not expecting more from a women’s league than we would from a men’s league, and these aren’t questions that men’s leagues are expected to be able to answer. But doesn’t progress look like trying to make a better future for the multiply-marginalized athletes and fans who have built women’s sports into the juggernaut they are today?

These are questions that will plague these women’s leagues as they continue to grow. The answers will determine what kind of future women’s sports wants to have for itself, but I fear that future may not be an equitable one.

May 16, 2025 12:26 pmClarification: May 16, 2025 12:26 pmThe Change.org petition was started by a different group than originally noted in this article, which has been updated with the correct information.

Image: Muscat Gulf Cup, Pranav21391, Public Domain

Oman’s sports economy came under the spotlight at the recent Tejarah Talks “Game On: The Potential of Oman’s Sports Economy.”

Visitors to the event heard that an ecosystem should be built to create seamless sport pathways from grassroots to elite, supported by public and private sectors.

A clear vision should be set with a global sporting calendar and targeted infrastructure investments, including a big bang event in which Oman should showcase itself to the world through a major sporting event like hosting the Formula One.

Creative Thought Leader & Storyteller, Jamal Al-Asmi, said in a LinkedIn post, “So it turns out that the global sports industry is no game. It’s a whopping $2.65 trillion powerhouse, ranking as the 9th largest industry worldwide and growing at a staggering 6.3% annually. But in a typical fashion, Oman isn’t just chasing numbers.

“We’re talking about an ecosystem that spans media rights, sponsorships, digital engagement, and community health and it all has to be in line with the country’s ethos.

“The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar generated over $7.5 billion in revenue – imagine what Oman can achieve by playing to its strengths which are not to be played around with.”

HE pankaj khimji recounted how Oman, with its newly upgraded Al Amerat Cricket Stadium, co-hosted the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2021 – an event that not only put Oman on the global cricket map but also showcased the country’s ability to deliver world-class experiences.

On the back of this, local businesses thrived, SMEs got a boost, and youth participation in cricket soared, with over 700 Omani students now playing cricket in schools and growing.

Joe Rafferty, Event Business Development Director at Oman Sail, highlighted Oman’s competitive edge: its people.

International organisers praised the professionalism, hospitality, and operational excellence of Omani teams.

Rafferty emphasized that while infrastructure matters, it’s the spirit and skill of the Omani people that win trust and repeat business.

He also noted that sports tourists spend 1.6 times more than average visitors – a massive opportunity for the tourism sector.

Ali Alajmi, CEO of Sabco Sports, the mastermind behind over 150 sports events in Oman, brought the numbers.

He said Sabco Sports has engaged over 100,000 participants and 28-30 sponsors for events like the Muscat Marathon, which now attracts 13,000 runners.

He stressed the importance of mass participation events-not just for elite athletes, but for building a healthy, active, and connected society.

Sponsorship now makes up 70-75% of event revenue, proving the private sector’s growing confidence in Oman’s sports ecosystem. The real golden ticket to be had though is in media rights.
 

To build a winning sports economy the audience heard that:

• Public-Private collaboration Is essential. Oman’s success stories-like the Muscat Marathon and ICC World Cup are built on partnerships.
• Mass participation drives the base events that get thousands moving, from school competitions to city marathons, and are the foundation for elite talent and a healthier society. This base also attracts sponsors and builds a culture of lifelong sports engagement.
• Infrastructure, yes-but people first – While stadiums and facilities matter, it’s the operational excellence, hospitality, and passion of Oman’s people that set the country apart. Training, upskilling, and empowering local talent is crucial for long-term success.
• Sports Tourism and Economic Diversification – Sports tourists are high-value visitors. By leveraging Oman’s natural assets-coastlines, mountains, and heritage sports can carve a unique niche in the region and beyond.
• Entrepreneurship and Innovation – From e-sports to sports tech start-ups, Oman’s young, tech-savvy population is ready to lead. The panel encouraged entrepreneurs to seize opportunities, supported by evolving regulations and funding models.

 
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INDYCAR

The team that collaborated to develop the INDYCAR Hybrid unit was named May 16 as the recipient of the 2025 Louis Schwitzer Award.

Sharing a $10,000 prize from the Indiana Section of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International and award sponsors Cummins and Valvoline Global were Raoul Fernandes of Skeleton Technologies, John Martin of EMPEL Systems Limited, Matt Niles of Honda Racing Corporation (HRC), Darren Sansum of INDYCAR, Rupert Tull de Salis of Dana Incorporated and formerly of Mahle Powertrain and Thomas Williams of Ilmor Engineering Ltd.

The innovative hybrid system is made up of the low voltage (48V) Motor Generator Unit (MGU) and Energy Storage System (ESS) – consisting of 20 ultracapacitors – both of which fit inside the bellhousing, located between the Chevrolet and Honda INDYCAR SERIES internal combustion engine and the gearbox. During regeneration, acting on the clutch shaft, the MGU builds power to be stored in the ESS. The additional horsepower is deployed through the same motor generator on driver demand.

For competition, options for automatic “regen” via braking or throttle position and manual “regen” via selected steering wheel paddles and buttons will be available. Deployment of stored energy will only be available manually through a latching button, similar to the existing Push to Pass system.

The INDYCAR Hybrid unit debuted last July at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and is used at every series race.

This award is a prestigious accolade in the automotive engineering industry, celebrating and recognizing groundbreaking innovations that push the boundaries of automotive technology. Named after Louis Schwitzer, an accomplished engineer and race car driver, this award has a rich history of honoring individuals and teams behind the innovative concepts introduced to the motorsport industry that increase competitive potential, meet NTT INDYCAR SERIES specifications and are related to the vehicle’s engine, powertrain, profile, chassis or safety.

The partnership announced this week between ASB GlassFloor and basketball analytics firm ShotTracker will see ShotTracker’s data collection and visualization capabilities integrated into ASB’s LED-embedded video courts — and the software operating system that controls them.

The deal formalizes a collaboration months in the making, beginning when ShotTracker installed its sensor-based shot and player tracking system, Helix, in ASB GlassFloor’s athlete testing facility in Orlando in January. Since, the companies’ combined capabilities have been a focal point of tech demonstrations to pro sports coaches, players and executives.

“We’re excited about the relationship,” ShotTracker Co-Founder & CEO Davyeon Ross told SBJ. “There’s some time before we see some of these [use-cases] come to fruition, but we’re going to continue to innovate and find ways that our applications can enhance the experience on the floor and work together to bring something incredible to the market.”

Helix — through sensors embedded around the facility, in basketballs and on athletes — collects shot and player tracking data that is accurate within two-to-four centimeters, then facilitates it being displayed through visualizations like heatmaps and shot plots. Typically, those visualizations are used as a training tool by coaches and players via tablets, but the 4K projection capabilities of ASB’s LumiFlex courts has now enabled displaying them on the court itself.

ShotTracker also has products that derive visualizations from recorded game footage (Pulse), retrieve play-specific video clips (Scout) and create sponsorable 3D visualizations (Hype). Those will all be embeddable in ASB’s system as well.

In the U.S., ASB’s LumiFlex courts have been used for NBA All-Star weekend exhibitions and a preseason scrimmage at the University of Kentucky. They are also permanently installed in the home arenas of EuroLeague clubs FC Bayern and Panathinaikos.

ASB’s vision for its futuristic floors is to create a partner-agnostic system through which data firms, wearable vendors and other tech providers can plug into its software operating system and use it to display anything from data visualizations to tracking animations to immersive fan engagement activations. In that vein, this ShotTracker partnership is not exclusive, but rather the first collaboration of what ASB’s Director/The Americas Chris Thornton hopes will continue to evolve into a multi-faceted offering.

“ASB GlassFloor and our GlassCourt OS [software] system can be a seamless extension of any coach’s analytics platform,” Thornton said, “enabling smarter decisions around training, game strategy and player development, right on the court.”

This week, I attended events by Amazon, Disney, NBCUniversal, and other streaming and network giants in New York, where they made their biggest pitches of the year to ad buyers.

The TV upfronts are an annual series of presentations and parties during which TV ad sellers do their best to sell the bulk of their inventory. Given the jittery macro environment and the decline of linear TV viewing, this year’s incarnation was expected to be a buyer’s market. A recent EMARKETER forecast estimated that tariffs could drag down this year’s haul by as much as $4.1 billion, a 23.5% decline from last year.

Still, the show must go on. And as far as I could see, the cloud of uncertainty didn’t keep people from coming out. They packed ballrooms and concert halls to get exclusive peeks at the fourth season of “The Bear” on Hulu and the sequel to “Wicked,” sip free booze, and catch Lady Gaga.

But the most entertaining moment of the week had to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came to Amazon’s upfront to plug his Christmas movie, “The Man With The Bag.” He had the crowd both groaning and laughing as he rambled on — until his “True Lies” costar Jamie Lee Curtis eased him off the stage.

Behind the parties and celeb antics, however, I could get a sense of the changing ad business — and five clear takeaways emerged.

1. The world has changed

Amid what’s usually a celebratory atmosphere, media companies couldn’t entirely avoid acknowledging that the world has changed. Sellers had to say enough to show they were sympathetic to the times, but not kill the vibe. This was a party, after all.

NBCUniversal’s sales chief, Mark Marshall, kicked off the week with a nod at the economic headwinds (and why they shouldn’t keep brands from staying on the air). Disney’s Rita Ferro also flicked at the uncertain climate and how Disney was all about flexibility, a play to fickle advertisers.

On the whole, though, execs tried to keep the mood light. So it was notable when ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel made an earnest plea for advertisers to support rival CBS’s “60 Minutes,” which is in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs.

2. YouTube loomed, even if media companies dared not speak its name

YouTube’s rising TV viewership — and the creator economy it’s built on — has been one of the biggest media stories of the past year.

Studios have taken note.

This year’s upfronts offered more signs of the shift, with Amazon renewing top YouTuber MrBeast’s “Beast Games” for two more seasons, and Fox’s free streamer Tubi bringing out social media stars like Noah Beck, who’s starring in “Sidelined 2: Intercepted.” And of course, YouTube reliably paraded out its biggest creators, including MrBeast and “Hot Ones” host Sean Evans, at Brandcast, its take on the upfront presentation.

Some legacy media giants like Disney went in the other direction by packing their presentations with famous franchises and Hollywood celebrities. Disney wanted you to know it had more than 100 talent on hand. The Mouse House seemed to be saying, hey, we have Hollywood-quality entertainment — and the stars most ad execs have actually heard of.

3. The upfronts aren’t just about TV anymore

Upfronts used to be about showing off your fall TV programming, but this week showed how media companies are trying to sell everything they have.

Everyone was promoting movies in addition to shows, for advertisers who like to be part of big marketing partnerships. Amazon trotted out the Kelce brothers of its Wondery podcast arm and Lizzo and DJ Steve Aoki to promote its Twitch streamer. Whole Foods appeared on the screen at one moment.

“Now it’s, let’s showcase everything that we have. It’s, ‘Here’s what we have, pick what appeals to your client,'” Alicia Weaver-McKinney, VP of media activation at ad agency Mediassociates, said of the broad menu on offer.

4. Sports are the new savior

Nearly every presentation was front-loaded with live sports as media companies leaned on the programming in their arsenal that’s most valuable to advertisers as they looked to drive deals in a shaky ad market.

“If you heard anything other than sports, it was item number two, three, four on the list,” longtime advertising advisor Michael Kassan said.

NBCU bragged that Peacock had more sports than any other streamer, and Jimmy Fallon didn’t miss a beat, quipping, “It’s great to be at the NBA upfront.”

NBA-less WBD was forced to talk up its tennis, the NHL, and women’s sports.

Some buyers privately wondered how sustainable the high prices media companies want for sports will be, though, given the glut of sports inventory out there and hesitance caused by economic uncertainty.

5. Big Tech is trying to change the language of TV

For the past few years, the tech companies have been crashing upfronts week, with Netflix and Amazon having their second in-person events this year.

Now, they want to change the way we talk about and value “TV.”

Netflix’s content head, Bela Bajaria, talked about slate, not slots, to differentiate streamers like Netflix from the old guard of linear TV, and pointed to its big engagement numbers to say Peak TV wasn’t over.

YouTube’s Neal Mohan emphasized how much people are watching podcasts on TV, the value of its creator-funded model of entertainment, and how it’s giving creators tools to spiff up their shows with TV viewers in mind.

And Amazon touted new interactive ads, data about how much its viewers shop on the platform, and the ability to get them to buy with the click of a remote, something no linear TV company can offer. Every Amazon presenter seemed to be required to utter the phrase, “Full funnel advertising at scale.”