{"id":95150,"date":"2025-08-25T17:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T17:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95150\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T17:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T17:24:07","slug":"womens-sports-hitting-stride-led-by-stars-like-u-s-rugby-star-ilona-maher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95150\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s sports hitting stride, led by stars like U.S. rugby star Ilona Maher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big personalities such as U.S. women\u2019s rugby player Ilona Maher<\/a> have \u201chelped push elite women\u2019s sport to what many believe is an inflection point,\u201d according to Samuel Agini of the FINANCIAL TIMES. In North America, the popularity of domestic sports such as the WNBA and NWSL is \u201calso growing.\u201d Governing bodies have \u201cbecome increasingly adept at turning the buzz around big competitions into increased grassroots participation and commercial opportunity.\u201d They are \u201cidentifying revenue streams beyond the broadcast revenues and gate receipts that typically underpin male sport.\u201d According to Deloitte, total revenues across elite female sport are \u201cexpected to exceed\u201d $2.35B this year. In a 78-page document published ahead of the 2025 tournament, World Rugby \u201cset out its blueprint for growth in the women\u2019s game.\u201d Key to the five-step plan is \u201cusing broadcast deals and social media\u201d to \u201cincrease visibility to fans and \u2018make it impossible to miss\u2019 women\u2019s rugby.\u201d The Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup<\/a>\u2019s organizers have \u201cprioritised visibility rather than revenue maximisation from broadcasters\u201d and \u201cregard the loss it is likely to make as an investment.\u201d World Rugby also wants to \u201cempower players to tell their stories through documentaries and social media, build momentum through the \u2018spikes of interest\u2019 created by international tournaments, attract fans to domestic clubs as well as national teams, and encourage more girls and women to play the game.\u201d The rise of women\u2019s sport is \u201cattracting institutional investors and wealthy individuals, particularly in North America.\u201d According to Deloitte, the region is predicted to \u201cgenerate almost\u201d $1.4B of elite women\u2019s sport revenues this year, \u201cmore than three times\u201d Europe\u2019s $420M (FINANCIAL TIMES, 8\/25<\/a>).<\/p>\n

BREAKING BARRIERS: THE ATHLETIC\u2019s Chris Weatherspoon noted in Sunderland, the \u201ctenth and biggest\u201d Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup is under way and Team USA, even with Maher, \u201cdrawer of millions of eyes online and starting her first World Cup game, were dispatched in the manner expected.\u201d Sunderland\u2019s Stadium of Light \u201cwelcomed a record World Cup crowd\u201d of 42,723. Strength of support \u201cwill be a theme of the coming month; ticket sales for the tournament are now near 400,000,\u201d while the final, at Twickenham on September 27, is \u201can 82,000 sell-out.\u201d It will be the \u201clargest attendance\u201d at a women\u2019s rugby union game (THE ATHLETIC, 8\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big personalities such as U.S. women\u2019s rugby player Ilona Maher have \u201chelped push elite women\u2019s sport to what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,2331,760,85,24353],"class_list":["post-95150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-culture","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}