Women’s pro sports is a ‘global phenomenon’ — and Canada is finally joining in – National | 24CA News
Women’s skilled sports activities is a rising phenomenon worldwide, and Canada is more and more becoming a member of within the motion.
After the launch of the Professional Women’s Hockey League this yr with three of the six groups from Canadian cities, one other six Canadian girls’s groups have utilized to hitch a brand new nationwide Division 1 girls’s soccer league within the nation.
Called Project 8, it will likely be the primary home skilled girls’s soccer league Canada has ever seen and is a “big deal,” girls’s sports activities advocates informed Global News.
So far, Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary have introduced they’ve utilized to the league, and three different groups will probably be revealed within the coming weeks, in line with Project 8. The league is about to launch in 2025 and has Canadian Tire, CIBC, DoorDash and Air Canada as founding companions.
“The timing (for its launch) couldn’t be better with the growth of viewership and popularity of women’s sports in general,” Kim Brassor, the founder and government director of Oakville, Ont.-based Future Girls Soccer, informed Global News.
“If the right business partners come along and players come along, I think it’s going to be a terrific venture for Canada Soccer.”
Brassor helps coach women ages eight to 12 in soccer, and stated having knowledgeable league in Canada will probably be an enormous inspiration for gamers. Before Project 8, the one hope for taking part in the game professionally could be to go to different international locations to play of their leagues, she stated.
Now the aim of enjoying professionally will probably be way more tangible and supply younger gamers with function fashions, in line with Brassor.
The new league is being created by retired Olympic participant Diana Matheson and her business companion, Thomas Gilbert. It comes as girls’s sports activities is quickly gaining recognition world wide, in line with Allison Sandmeyer-Graves, the CEO of non-profit Canadian Women and Sport.
“It’s a global phenomenon,” she stated. “The fandom is growing in terms of the viewership online, on TV, engagement on social media, attendance at events.”
Nielsen reported in July 2023 that curiosity in girls’s sports activities is rising at a “meteoric pace,” with the ultimate recreation of the NCAA Women’s Division between Iowa and LSU drawing in a record-breaking 9.9 million views, up 103 per cent from the yr earlier than. Deloitte has predicted that ladies’s elite sports activities will surpase US$1 billion in income in 2024 for the primary time.
Sandmeyer-Graves stated Canada is definitely behind when it comes to girls’s sports activities choices in comparison with different locations such because the U.S. and Europe, and says there’s a huge alternative for funding and partnerships. She stated girls athletes are actually constructing their very own profiles and fanbases much like how male athletes have carried out for many years — and types are taking discover.
The new league will solely assist with progress by creating extra visibility and air time, she stated.
“Investors seeing the business opportunity that (women’s sports) represents and starting to put their money toward it is making a profound difference,” she stated. “There’s a tremendous business opportunity here that has not been tapped into yet.”
Similar to how native sports activities, such because the Raptors G-League in Mississauga, are making inroads of their very own, girls’s sports activities supplies its personal twist that followers appear to be consuming up.
Brassor stated stands are continually crammed at video games, and sometimes it’s households who hope to supply some inspiration for his or her youngsters. But it isn’t solely inspiration on present however precise expertise, she famous.
“It’s a great game,” she stated. “When you watch it, you’re entertained.”
There are nonetheless obstacles to girls’s sports activities, although. Sandmeyer-Graves talked about that sports activities has been dominated by males for thus lengthy that there’s “gender bias” baked into the choice making and insurance policies, additionally given management in sports activities continues to be very a lot male.
Women’s sports activities — together with sports activities extra broadly — even have confronted high-profile sexual abuse and misconduct points which were unearthed lately, together with in water polo, gymnastics and hockey.
Both Sandmeyer-Graves and Brassor say there may be nonetheless an extended approach to go to eradicate the issue fully.
“We have to stand up for victims and give them a neutral spot where they can tell their truth without being victimized again,” Brassor stated. “We’re still not there.”
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
