![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/SSRSchart11122025.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Even more significant, the WNBA\u2019s 17.3 million boost in new fans during 2024 marked the highest influx of new fans to any league or sports in any single year since SSRS began measuring new fans annually in 2000.<\/p>\n
As noted in a report from Edison Research, which was acquired by SSRS in October, the double-digit-million lifts for both the WNBA and women\u2019s college basketball in 2024 \u2014 with 12.4 million new fans added by the latter \u2014 was likely driven by high-profile players such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.<\/p>\n
Also seeing a key increase in fans last year, according to Sports Poll, was the NFL, which added 9.5 million U.S. fans 12+ during another season dominated by the Kansas City Chiefs, with Taylor Swift receiving plenty of camera time and publicity while attending games and cheering on then-boyfriend (and now-fianc\u00e9) Travis Kelce.<\/p>\n
Woman\u2019s sports have been gaining traction both with fans and with exposure. The iHeart Woman\u2019s Sports Network, the first-ever audio platform dedicated exclusively to women\u2019s sports, recently celebrated its first anniversary. iHeartMedia and Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, in collaboration with Ensemble, marked the occasion<\/a> during the WNBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis last July.<\/p>\n In just one year, the iHeart Women\u2019s Sports platform has helped boost coverage of women\u2019s sports from under 1% in 2024 to over 34% this year, reaching 89 million monthly listeners across nearly 500 U.S. radio stations. As interest in women\u2019s sports continues to surge, iHeartMedia has remained committed to equitable representation, dedicating 50% of all newly produced sports podcasts to women\u2019s sports. In the past year, 80% of iHeartMedia listeners aged 18 to 54 reported that women\u2019s sports have become more accessible. iHeart Women\u2019s Sports also ranks in the top 10% of all iHeartPodcast downloads, underscoring the growing demand for focused, female-driven sports content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A meteoric rise in WNBA fans during 2024 outpaced yearly growth of any professional or college league or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,3872,44,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-285419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-free","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}