(PRESS RELEASE) -- It was the last home game of the season when Caitlin Clark stepped to the line with just 0.3 seconds left in the first half. The Iowa Hawkeyes superstar coolly drained a pair of free throws, shattering the all-time college basketball scoring mark in front of a record TV audience.
A month later, the NCAA championship game between Iowa and South Carolina drew peak viewership of 24 million people, surpassing the men’s title game for the first time.
We’re entering a new era in sports history: one where women’s sports are front and center. Iconic athletes such as Caitlin Clark, tennis star Coco Gauff, and swimmer Katie Ledecky are impressing fans with their highlight-reel feats, and crowds are lining up to watch them perform.
Indeed, the first month of the WNBA 2024 season saw the league’s highest attendance in 26 years, with views nearly tripling last season’s average, while opening night saw a significant rise in bet count, according to data from FanDuel, Flutter’s leading U.S. sports betting brand.
The growing enthusiasm for women’s sports reaches beyond basketball. In 2023, the Women’s World Cup was the thirdbiggest soccer competition of the year by volume for Sportsbet, Flutter’s market leading Australian betting brand, behind only the Men’s World Cup and the English Premier League.
The momentum is two-fold: Women’s sports are bringing in the previously underrepresented female demographic, as well as helping male sports fans discover captivating new storylines, rivalries and drama. A recent survey found that 90% of men and women sports bettors expect to watch the same amount or more of women’s sports over the next year.
Sportsbooks have an immense opportunity to enable this growing wave of women’s sports fans to engage with their favorite teams, participate on game days, and build community.
The 2024 Paris Olympics made history as the first to feature an equal number of men and women athletes, and women’s events had the same amount of prime-time slots as the men’s.
That helped reverse a trend of declining Olympics viewership. In one memorable moment, nearly 13 million people in the U.S. tuned in on a Tuesday afternoon to watch Simone Biles and Team USA win gold. And women’s sports moments frequently went viral, such as the U.S. women’s rugby team’s exhilarating bronze-medal win.
And the interest didn’t stop there, it carried over to betting: 24% of all Olympics bets placed through FanDuel were on Women’s events, with 60% of Olympics soccer bets placed on women’s matches and 79% of gymnastics wagers on women’s events.
“As the audience for women’s sports continue to grow at an unprecedented rate, our partnership landscape is evolving to reflect new investments centered on female sports, commented Suzanne Brower, Talent Partnerships, Senior Director, FanDuel.We are proud to have notable talent ambassadors who are supporting women’s leagues and authentically engaging with betting content around women’s sports, and to sustain momentum, we will continue to partner with ambassadors who support and engage in betting women’s sports.”