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DisruptHERS – Driving a New Model for Women’s Sport

For decades, scholars and advocates of women’s sport have called for a change in how women’s sport is marketed, sponsored, endorsed, promoted, covered, invested in, capitalized upon, and broadcast. Men’s sport grew and became popular and lucrative precisely because of media attention and investment, initially and over time, which is often overlooked as the seeds for its success. Women’s sport has deserved equal resources, yet has not been provided adequate investment, which is then used as a false narrative depicting women’s sport as not as lucrative, successful, and popular as men’s sport—a classic chicken-egg circular argument.

Women’s sport and women athletes have had to rely on traditional models and processes in order to be seen and taken seriously and as a result (or should we say-lack of results!) have grown tired, skeptical, disillusioned, and restless. Due to a multitude of factors including the global COVID-19 pandemic, calls for social justice, populist driven attacks and backlash against women’s rights, and the effect Title IX has had on the athletic careers and empowerment of girls and women in the US, unprecedented disruption is occurring in women’s sport, specifically among women athletes