Jessica Porter is a Denver7 Anchor and Reporter. You can watch her weekdays at 6 and 10 p.m.
Professional women's sports are experiencing hypergrowth, expanding 4.5 times faster than men's sports. According to the consulting firm McKinsey, global revenues for women's sports are projected to reach $2.
3 billion this year.'People love watching sports. They love watching winners,' Jared Bahir Browsh said.Browsh, the director of critical sports studies at CU Boulder, said the current success is the result of long-term efforts.'This has been a growth project, and it takes time to build a fan base, and we're finally seeing the fruits of that in women's sports,' Browsh said.The growth is fueled by a massive increase in viewership. Both the WNBA Finals and the National Women’s Soccer League championship games last year saw over a million average viewers. Fans are also filling stadiums.'I went to several of the Denver Onyx rugby games last year. I think I'm going to get season tickets this coming spring,' Jess Hollingshead said.Hollingshead is among the growing number of fans attending live events. She has a long list of professional women's sporting events she has attended, including the PWHL women's hockey takeover games, and she went to her first WNBA game last summer. Hollingshead is also one of more than 50,000 fans who have already bought tickets to watch Denver’s first professional soccer team, Denver Summit FC on March 28.'I cannot wait to go and have a professional team that I can go to here. That's soccer. That's one of the biggest women's sports that were accessible to my generation growing up,' Hollingshead said.Hollingshead shared her excitement at The 99ers Sports Bar, Denver’s first sports bar dedicated to women’s athletics. Co-owners Miranda Spencer and Annie Weaver have built a community at the bar since 2024 in spite of some doubters.'We're on social media, and people are commenting, like, they will not last longer than a week, you know? So, so it's easy to get in our heads, but ultimately overcame all that,' Weaver said.'I would say that our retention is our return rate is probably 35%,' Spencer said.The business addresses a problem fans have when trying to access games available only on streaming or cable services.'A lot of these teams or leagues still don't have broadcast partners, which is really unfortunate, especially because of how many fans they have, and how they've taken off. I will say, since we opened, it has changed a tremendous amount,' Weaver said.Scripps, the parent company of Denver7, has partnered with the WNBA, NWSL, and PWHL to broadcast games. While challenges around equality remain, professional women’s sports have gone mainstream, and local fans want to see more expansion.'I hope Denver gets all of the professional sports teams. I hope we get a WNBA team. I hope we get a PWHL team, somebody with money, bring a WNBA team to Denver, we're hoping, fingers crossed,' Weaver said.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
Denver Summit FC NWSL PWHL WNBA Women's Professional Sports See Massive Growth As Sports Viewership Women's Sports Women's Sports Growth Women's Sports Stats
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