![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GoodNewsSports-graphic-draft-2-1400px.jpg\")
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Consider it the latest use of girl power.<\/p>\n
International activist Malala Yousafzai recently announced a new venture called Recess that will deploy a partnership with tennis legend Billie Jean King to promote women\u2019s sports across the world, including some planned investment in basketball\u2019s WNBA and the NWSL (National Women\u2019s Soccer League).<\/p>\n
Yousafzai, who survived a gunshot wound from the Taliban at 15 and won the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a> just a few years later, is a huge sports fan who recognizes the power of athletics to pull people together.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are capable of dialogue, we are capable of coming together, and sports\u2014in history and in the current times\u2014have proven to be that powerful way of bringing communities together,\u201d she said in an article on CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n Following her previous work in promoting equal educational opportunities across the world, Recess<\/a> will strive to expand athletic opportunities to empower girls, and invest in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n Yousafzai will work alongside her husband, Asser Malik, who has experience in Pakistan\u2019s cricket scene, and Billie Jean King, who will serve as an advisor. Some of the early targets for investment include the WNBA and the NWSL, which could provide enough growth potential to sustain the venture far into the future.<\/p>\n Women\u2019s basketball has experienced a surge of popularity in recent years. According to the NCAA<\/a>, the women\u2019s basketball tournament drew 351,777 fans in attendance (the third highest total in its history), with the 2025 Championship Game peaking at 9.9 million television viewers on ABC.<\/p>\n DID YOU KNOW? Lawyer Smashes World Record Becoming Fastest Female to Row Across the Atlantic \u2013 To Show Girls Anything is Possible<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, soccer\u2019s NWSL averaged almost a million viewers<\/a> of its 2024 championship game, an 18% increase over the previous year. Attendance has also jumped by more than 40%, exceeding more than 2 million total fans last season.<\/p>\n Sporting starts at home<\/p>\n Those leagues, however, aren\u2019t the only targets for Yousafzai\u2019s Recess initiative. She is thinking much broader, with her own experiences always present in her mind.<\/p>\n Yousafzai remembers growing up in Pakistan and having to stay behind with the other girls while the boys at school headed off to the cricket fields during recess.<\/p>\n She is hoping to change those experiences for future generations, granting better access to playing fields and athletic opportunities for girls all over the world.<\/p>\n MORE GIRL-POWER SPORTS: \u201cIt\u2019s empowering girls,\u201d Yousafzai told CNN about her goals for Recess. \u201cIt\u2019s sending a powerful message to women, to all of us, that the sky\u2019s the limit, and women\u2019s sports will thrive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will have more equal opportunities for women and girls, and we can imagine a world where girls are empowered.\u201d<\/p>\n SHARE THIS GOOD NEWS With Your Gal Pals in Sports\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consider it the latest use of girl power. International activist Malala Yousafzai recently announced a new venture called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[4818,47442,10701,1248,76730,403,99,428,154268,434,1764],"class_list":["post-496709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-athletics","tag-equality","tag-gender","tag-girls","tag-inspiring","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uplifting","tag-wnba","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Malala-Yousafzai-in-2024-by-Adam-Chitayat-CC-BY-SA-4-Wiki-and-Billie-Jean-King-in-2019-by-Sam-Rapopo.jpeg\")
Malala Yousafzai in 2024 (by Adam Chitayat) and Billie Jean King in 2019 (Selfie by Sam Rapoport @Samrap10)
\u2013 Both under CC BY-SA 4.0 \/ Wikimedia<\/p>\n
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