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The Rise of Women's Basketball

Sep 11, 2024

Rising Interest In the Sport — And What Fans Are Looking Forward To

First, the obvious: Women’s basketball was always cool and worth watching. WNBA teams have been playing lights-out basketball since the league’s first season in 1997 — but if you got the impression that the sport was majorly slept-on in the past several decades, you weren’t alone in feeling that way.

That’s all changed now, with WNBA games drawing record ratings and game attendance. Sure, watching the emergence of superstars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese seems to have been the wake-up call many people needed. But, as fans everywhere are discovering, there are a whole lot of ferociously talented players in women’s basketball, from the WNBA down to the college level and beyond.

Insights:

  • The number of viewers of the WNBA draft quadrupled from 2023 to 2024.
  • Viewership of the Women’s NCAA tournament has tripled since 2019.
  • Viewership of the Women’s NCAA tournament Championship captured almost four million more viewers than the men’s championship in 2024.
  • Interest in the term ‘WNBA draft’ online was 5 times higher in 2024 during the week of the draft than in 2023.
  • In 21 US states, “WNBA salary” was the most-searched term related to women’s basketball over the past year.

What does the data say about how women’s basketball conquered the sports world? After combing through Google search data and TV ratings, we came away with a clearer picture of how this sport fits into the athletic landscape.

Rising Interest in Women’s Basketball

Rising Interest in Women’s Basketball

Google search data tells us a little more about the soaring popularity of women’s basketball. Search terms for women’s basketball steadily gained steam throughout the early 2020s, but interest started to surge for real in summer 2022. 


Then came an explosion of popularity in summer 2023, followed by an all-out frenzy in 2024. 


Incredibly, search interest for “women’s basketball” was 3 times higher than “men’s basketball” during the peak days of the NCAA tournament. That tracks with the TV viewership numbers, as we’ll talk about in just a minute.


With iconic former college players like Clark and Reese now tearing up the hardwood in the WNBA, it’s not hard to see that we’ve entered a new era for women’s hoops. Again, the numbers tell the story: Interest in the WNBA draft vaulted five times higher in 2023 than its previous record in 2022, with similar results for related terms like “WNBA salary.”

Rising Interest in Women’s Basketball

Even in our online age, TV is still how most sports fans get their fix — so it’s especially important to know that the TV numbers for women’s basketball measure up to the online interest. Much like the Google searches, TV viewership of the WNBA draft started with a healthy bump around 2020 before taking off in 2023. But nobody was ready for the rocket-fuel increase of 2024, when WNBA draft viewership soared from just over half a million to 2.5 million. 


Interest in women’s college basketball has been on a dramatic upswing, too, with the women’s NCAA tournament tournament capturing by far its greatest-ever audience in 2024. An average of well over 2 million people tuned into the women’s Big Dance this past year. What’s more, the championship bout between South Carolina and Iowa actually dominated the viewing numbers of the entire NCAA, capturing almost four million more viewers than the men’s championship.

The Most Searched Terms This Year

The Most Searched Terms This Year

Which aspects of women’s basketball are capturing the nation’s attention the most? The most searched women’s basketball-related terms vary by region, but a few interesting takeaways jump out:

  • In 21 US states, “WNBA salary” is the most-searched term related to women’s basketball. That might seem odd, but consider: For one thing, fans have always been curious about athletes’ salaries. For another, WNBA salaries drew attention this year for their extreme mismatch with men’s NBA salaries — another sign that fans are gaining awareness of the historical inequities that women’s leagues have been struggling against.
  • “Women’s basketball” and “women’s college basketball schedule” were the most-searched terms in Iowa and South Carolina, respectively — the two states that had hometown teams in the most recent women’s NCAA tournament.
  • “WNBA finals” was the most-searched term in California and New York/New Jersey, demonstrating how the biggest events in women’s basketball have hit the mainstream sports world in the country’s largest media markets.
  • The rising buzz for the WNBA championships extended to several other states, with states like Georgia, Arizona, Maryland and even Alaska seeing exceptional search volume for “WNBA playoffs.”

Conclusion

Women’s basketball fans have waited long enough — and now, just like that, their favorite sport is everywhere, from sports bar TVs to water cooler conversations. The WNBA and women’s college ball have blown up in a huge way, and the data backs up the vibes that most sports fans have felt in the past few years. 

Most importantly, women’s leagues are building a lasting place in American sports culture. The WNBA is seeded with a fresh crop of rising stars thanks to the blockbuster college seasons of the last two years, giving every game the potential for electrifying performances. However, buzz is already growing for the upcoming college season, too, where the power of young talents like JuJu Watkins and Raven Johnson will be on display.

The athletic wear industry is also moving in step with the huge gains women’s sports have made. New women’s basketball shoes like the Nike Sabrina 2 Court Vision are pushing the boundaries of design and shoe tech, while initiatives like Hibbett x Nike Support Her Sole focus on getting girls’ sports programs the funding they deserve.

It’s a new day for women’s sports — so if you haven’t tuned in to a WNBA game or a women’s college game yet, what are you waiting for? There’s never been a more exciting time to get in on the action.

Methodology

To find our data, we used a variety of sources. We used Google Trends search data to determine the most popular or most searched terms for Women’s Basketball and to look at search interest over time. Other sources used are cited below: 

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