Many media companies are filling their schedules with all kinds of women’s sports, from WNBA games to League I volleyball games. ESPN wants to make them better.
When the Disney-backed sports media giant launches “Women’s Sports Sundays” this weekend, it will mark a quiet revolution of sorts. ESPN’s nine weeks of WNBA or NWSL games will replace Sunday Night Baseball, its flagship weekend show that has aired for 35 seasons. The symbolism is not lost on anyone.
“In fact, we don’t even use words like ‘initiative,'” Susie Piotrowski, ESPN’s vice president of women’s sports programming, said in a recent interview. “We’re building a franchise and that’s what we think we’re doing here.”
ESPN is giving women’s sports the evening prime-time status that has long been dominated by sports media highlights like “Sunday Night Football.” In doing so, the company hopes to develop new distinctive traits, even though most sports are still dominated by competitions played by men. To ensure you can watch the game, “Women’s Sports Sundays” will be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, the ESPN App, Disney+ and ESPN Deportes. Retailer TJMaxx will serve as the presenting sponsor and work with ESPN to bring attention to athletes, teams and leagues.
Rebecca Lobo, who played for the New York Liberty during the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997, said having a Sunday night show dedicated to women’s sports is a groundbreaking move. “On Sunday night, people will know, and if they want to watch the WNBA, they’ll know where to turn,” she said. “That’s pretty important.”
Lobo is on site as an analyst on Sunday and calls a game with a certain history: her own. On June 21, “Women’s Sports Sundays” will feature a matchup between the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks, exactly 30 years after the first WNBA game was played on June 21, 1997. This match is one that Lobo remembers well. Because she participated. This first game was heavily promoted by NBC, the network that aired it, then in the midst of its “NBA on NBC” heyday.
“There was a tremendous amount of resources invested in the first game,” recalled Hannah Storm, anchor of the “WNBA Countdown” telecast before the first “Women’s Sports Sunday.” Storm has first-hand knowledge of last Sunday’s events, as he served as the play-by-play for the game under the intense spotlight. NBC put a lot of effort into the WNBA debut, led by the league’s former commissioner, David Stern, who believed there was new business to be found in the women’s basketball league.
“It was the L.A. Forum. It was packed, full of star players, everything you could want from a WNBA basketball game,” Storm says. The debut broadcast featured a female lead producer and an all-female announcing team. “I felt pretty scared,” she recalled. I had just had my first baby. There were many resources in place to make it successful. ”
Some might argue that Mr. Stern finally got what he wanted. All that was needed was a major recalibration of the media industry and the rise of a group of fans who no longer needed to rely on traditional channels to draw attention to their favorite teams and players.
Sports has become perhaps the only programming format that America’s major media conglomerates can rely on. Even in an era when more consumers can create their own programming schedules by streaming their favorite shows on demand, sports still command the broad concurrent audience that big-spending advertisers like Procter & Gamble and McDonald’s need to spend their marketing dollars effectively. This has not only spurred a flood of new sports venues through streaming and linear media, but also spurred advertisers who previously wouldn’t have spent as much money on a football or basketball game, but now need to do so to attract viewers.
Sports have become the most important thing for all media companies this year, with games from leagues like the NFL and NBA among the few that marketers think will increase in value as networks and streamers look to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of the next programming cycle, according to five executives familiar with the current “upfront” negotiations.
Media companies may not have the intense demand for drama and comedy they once enjoyed, but they know that sports can give them license to seek big paychecks. Disney entered the market earlier this year, seeking $10 million for a 30-second ad for the upcoming 2027 Super Bowl, a significant jump from the price NBC originally sought for last year’s Super Bowl.
However, even sports are subject to strict scrutiny. Allocating “Women’s Sports Sunday” to a slot that has been reserved for Major League Baseball for decades shows that ESPN is taking a very pragmatic approach to its schedule, despite its long ties to various leagues. ESPN and MLB were in the midst of a seven-year deal starting in 2022. However, the two sides agreed to an “opt-out” clause in 2025, allowing either side to break the agreement under certain conditions. That’s perhaps a necessary condition at a time when more leagues are seeking significant increases in broadcast rights fees. ESPN has reconsidered its relationship with MLB, choosing instead to adopt a different package of national games while distributing MLB.TV via digital platforms. This move allows ESPN to offer a portion of thousands of games to fans outside of their specific home team’s market. The game is widely recognized as some of the most passionate and enthusiastic games among fans of the national pastime.
In 2026, there’s more than just expectations for the WNBA and other women’s sports leagues. There is active interest. Media investment consortium WPP Media has pledged to double the amount its customers spend on women’s sports in 2024 and said it aims to create a marketplace dedicated to the programming genre. Publicis Media launched Women’s Sports Connect last year. It’s a new service that allows advertisers to secure positions in sports and programming centered around female athletes, using contracts to buy specific types of advertising space and funding for original content.
Financial services company Ally believes consumers will become more interested in women’s sports as the network makes them more prominent on the schedule. The company reallocated its ad spending, moving advertising dollars away from traditional cable networks and allowing them to invest in women’s sports. “I think fans have a different relationship with female athletes than they do with male athletes, and they have a vested interest in knowing as much as possible about female athletes,” said Andrea Brimmer, the company’s chief marketing and communications officer. “I would like to see it continue to grow,” she added, citing leagues specializing in women’s hockey and soccer. Already, sponsors have emerged to back Unrivaled, an early-stage 3-on-3 women’s basketball league that will play on Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT.
“The momentum in women’s sports has created new opportunities for brands to engage with fans in meaningful and authentic ways,” says Danielle Brown. Senior Vice President of Sports and Streaming Brand Solutions at Disney Advertising.
Odessa “OJ” Jenkins, founder and CEO of the Women’s National Football Conference, an early-stage league that recently expanded its rights deal with ESPN, said the sports sector simply seems more open to women. “More people are more open now. If you had asked me seven years ago, frankly, it wasn’t that easy. I think this boom that’s happening in women’s sport is kind of revolutionizing the way people look at women’s abilities. I think it’s completely changed the attitude of fans that women should be able to play football too,” she says. “Today, I think we have much less resistance.”
The WNBA helped by staying the course. “The WNBA has had a steady stream of ready-to-play stars” since her college days, Storm said, but many observers agree that the addition of Caitlin Clark in 2024 will spark even more interest in the league. “She took it to a whole different stratosphere,” says Ryan Luocou, who also helps convene the first “Women’s Sports Sunday” action. Support for the league swelled, he says, “and she turned it into a full-fledged hellhole.”
The challenges for “Women’s Sports Sunday” may be more difficult than expected. There will be die-hard fans who know every ins and out about their favorite WNBA players, and there will definitely be a wave of casual sports fans who flock to ESPN just because a new show airs in its prime-time slot. “You’ve got to be kind to the people who happen to be watching. You get a lot out of it when you do the playoffs. There’s a lot of people who normally just want to see what’s going on, but they’re watching the show. Yeah, I definitely feel that.”
Disney wants to bring more women’s sports to more fans. According to Piotrowski, a custom studio program for “Women’s Sports Sundays” will debut on July 26 and will lead up to the NWSL games. “It will serve as a ‘nation’ for women’s sports,” she says. Executives are also reviewing the game calendar and considering broadcasting the program at other times of the year. “We’re not expanding to make a profit,” she says. “We’re not just thinking about this being a one-and-done thing. We’re thinking about this being a headliner.”
