Other Women's Sports

10/14/2024 |  After shooting to newfound internet stardom, Kim Ye-ji insists that ‘nothing has changed much’ since the Olympics (CNN Sports)

             One might picture a customized velvet-lined box as a safe and worthy place to store a first Olympic medal, but not Kim Ye-ji. The impossibly cool shooter randomly dug up her silver medal from the bottom of her backpack.

“Oh, here’s the medal,” says Kim. “No wonder my bag was heavy!”

9/30/2024 |  Athlos NYC shows early signs of success in inaugural meet (Gist Sports, The) Last Thursday, women’s track meet Athlos NYC took off at Icahn Stadium in Manhattan, and seemed to be everything founder Alexis Ohanian billed it to be. As we wait for official viewership and attendance numbers, immediate IRL impressions suggest Athlos could be the next major event on the Big Apple’s sports calendar between the US Open and the NYC Marathon.

9/26/2024 |  Olympic Gold Medalist Masai Russell: ‘Sad’ It Took Until Now to Promote Women’s Track (Front Office Sports) Alexis Ohanian’s women’s track brainchild Athlos finally comes to fruition Thursday with an event in New York City. 
The meet, which is independent of USA Track & Field, is notable for its big prize pool ($663,000 total, including $60,000 per winner, far more than what athletes get on the Diamond League circuit) and broadcast distribution deals (ESPN+, YouTube, DAZN, and X/Twitter will all show the meet).

9/26/2024 |  Alexis Ohanian’s Big-Money Women’s Track Experiment Is Here (Front Office Sports) Before they set out to secure commitments from some of the world’s fastest runners earlier this year, organizers of a new track meet understood they had some convincing to do. 
The meet, Athlos NYC, would be held in New York City six weeks after the end of the Paris Olympics, the peak of many athletes’ seasons, and two weeks after the finale of the Diamond League, track and field’s biggest global circuit. 

5/1/2024 |  Cricket Australia reveals 10-year plan to bolster women’s cricket in Australia (Gist Sports, The)

The GIST: After investing millions in women’s soccer and restructuring the WNBL, Australia is turning its attention to women’s cricket. Governing body Cricket Australia (CA) unveiled a 10-year plan yesterday formulated with input from top playerson how to grow the game, which includes a goal to boost revenue by $65.3M to reach $79.1M by 2034. Getting her the (baggy) green.

The details: By 2034, the governing body wants $327M invested in women-specific cricket infrastructure and all domestic players to become full-time professionals. CA also wants at least 40% female representation in key off-field positions, 600K fans annually at women’s cricket matches, and for 100K girls aged 5 to 12 to pick up the axe.

The global landscape: Cricket is most popular in South Asia and India is its biggest market, where the men’s Indian Premier League was valued at $5.3B in 2017 and its cricket board is worth $2.25B— 28x more than CA’s $79M value. And while the International Cricket Council mandates equal payat its events, women cricketers receive a fractionof the media exposure and investment.

• Despite this, India is investing in women’s cricket growth in historic ways — the Women’s Premier League sold its five initial franchises for $114.4M per franchise, is now valued at $150Ma year into operations, and recently inked one of the largest rights deals in women’s sports.

The context: Australia has historically been the top contender in women’s cricket, and a 2020 survey showed the national women's cricket team had the strongest emotional connection with Aussie fans, just ahead of soccer’s Matildas. However, in order for CA to reach its goal to make cricket Australia's leading sport for women and girls, it’ll have to catch up to soccer first.

Zooming out: The CA’s plan plays into an Australian trend of revamping women’s sports infrastructure and a global movement of women’s cricket investment, which is already paying off in India. The women’s game is only currently generating 5% of Australia’s cricket revenue despite its prestige, but Australia is hoping to change that by filling stands and TV screens. Winners all-round.