At SXSW 2024, basketball star Sue Bird and Jess Robertson, co-founder and chief content officer of the media company TOGETHXR, talked about the growth of women’s sports, and why, in their view, society has finally caught up with the athletes.
Breaking a vicious cycle
TOGETHXR was born from a call from footballer Alex Morgan in 2019, after the US women’s World Cup win. Robertson describes the cycle that has held women’s sports back: historically only about 4% of sports media coverage went to women; without coverage, it is hard to build an audience; without an audience, brands do not invest; without investment, media do not tell the stories. Morgan wanted to co-found the company with other champions: Sue Bird, Chloe Kim and Simone Manuel. Coverage has since risen, to around 16% in 2023 by the figures cited.
“Society caught up to us”
Bird entered the WNBA in 2002, when the league’s early excitement was fading. For years, she says, the league tried to be what it thought people wanted. Around 2020, players leaned into authenticity, and that drew people in. Even without investment, media deals or sponsors, the players kept improving and building their own brands. Now that the investment is arriving, she sees more household names and more coverage.
The panel lists records: Caitlin Clark’s most-watched college game of the season, a 92,000-strong crowd for Nebraska volleyball, the WNBA’s most-watched regular season on ABC in years. On media rights, Bird uses an image: women’s college basketball was the penthouse, but it was sold with the whole building for a flat fee. Equity, she insists, is not asking for LeBron James’s salary, but for the same opportunity to grow.
Stories and influence
The speakers want more women behind the camera and in commentary, people who know the sport well enough to give context. They recall that Minnesota Lynx players wore protest shirts in 2016, before the wider movement among athletes, and present a documentary, Power of the Dream, about WNBA players’ political influence in 2020. Their advice to men who want to help: be a fan, buy tickets, and speak up when you hear women’s sports put down.