Two years after Caitlin Clark's legendary collegiate career ended, women's college basketball is still building steam. Coined as "The Caitlin Clark Effect" by the Hawkeyes Wire and NCAA , the term refers to the record-breaking attendance and viewership that climbed throughout 2023 and 2024 during the now-WNBA star's collegiate run. As of 2026, women's college basketball viewership has grown 33% year over year. And this past Sunday's NCAA Women's Basketball Championship drew 9.9 million viewers, a sign that the surge shows no signs of slowing.
This growing momentum extends well beyond women's college basketball to the professional level. According to Nielsen's recent " Top of Sports " report, the 2025 WNBA season was the most-watched in league history, with ESPN networks averaging 1.3 million viewers across regular-season games and 1.2 million across the postseason, both up year over year. Fans consumed more than 220 million hours of WNBA content across all national networks, a 16% increase from the prior season.
The WNBA is also scoring big wins for pay equity. Women's basketball players recently landed a significant pay increase through a historic collective bargaining agreement. Under the previous deal, the maximum salary was $249,244 , a number even a player of Clark's caliber couldn't reach until completing a four-year rookie contract. In her first season, Clark earned just $78,066 despite her record-breaking impact on the game. Meanwhile, for the 2025 to 2026 season, the average NBA player salary is $10,548,047 .
Now, under the new collective bargaining agreement, the salary cap for this year's season is set at $7 million, adjusting annually based on team and league revenue growth. The agreement represents what the league calls in a press release "the first comprehensive revenue-sharing model in women's professional sports history."
NJ/NY Gotham FC celebrates with the Champion's trophy after winning the NWSL Championship 2025 final (Photo by Brandon Vallance/Getty Images)
Women's college and professional basketball are just one part of the broader growth of women's sports as an industry. Nielsen's report found that viewers consumed 46 billion minutes of women's sports content in 2025 alone.
The report also found that the NWSL saw a 61% increase in average viewership during the regular 2025 season. Riding that growth, the league announced plans to commit up to $115 million in additional player compensation under its current collective bargaining agreement.
What's more, according to Nielsen's report, the women's hockey gold-medal game between Team USA and Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics averaged a record 5.3 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock. The NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament averaged 666,000 viewers across 15 matches on ESPN, up 13% year over year. And the 2025 U.S. Open women's tennis final averaged 2.4 million viewers on ESPN, a 50% increase from the previous year.
Coco Gauff with the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen trophy after her victory at the 2025 French Open. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Despite years of growing audience appetite for women's sports, not all leagues and teams have seen the same pay increases as the WNBA and NWSL. For instance, according to a recent survey conducted by The Athletic, nearly a third of women's hockey players identified salary as the biggest issue facing the sport, with player salaries ranging from about $37,131 to $100,000. Comparatively, per Indeed , the average NHL player salary is $2.69 million.
Further, at the 2024 Italian Open, women competed for a $5.5 million prize pool compared to $8.5 million on the men's side. As Tennis star and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Coco Gauff aptly put it in a Forbes video interview, many women players "are selling out some of these stadiums more than some of the other guys and they're getting paid way more."
The WNBA and NWSL have shown what's possible when rising viewership and business growth translates into real investment in players. But those wins are just a start. According to McKinsey , women's sports have the potential to generate at least $2.5 billion in value for rights holders in the United States by 2030, including private equity investors, brand sponsors, and broadcast media rights holders. Indeed, sustaining and expanding buy-in across all women's sports has a clear track record for return on investment, benefiting investors, media and brands who chose to join the game.
Michele Kang is one example of what that buy-in looks like in practice. The Billie Jean King Leadership Award recipient's first-of-its-kind global multi-club ownership model has provided crucial investment in women's soccer teams, including the Washington Spirit, OL Lyonnes, and London City Lionesses. She has also supported Women's Rugby, U.S. Soccer, and IDA Sports, and her newly launched Kang Institute will develop research-backed best practices for the training and well-being of women and girls across all levels of the sport.
Media brands like ESPN and E.W. Scripps recognize the value in women's sports. ESPN and Athletes Unlimited recently announced a three-year rights extension, making ESPN the official broadcast partner for the company's women's softball, basketball, and volleyball leagues. E.W. Scripps is taking a similar play, recently announcing the Scripps Sports Network, a free ad-supported streaming channel launching with 100 live events per year across leagues, including the NWSL, Professional Women's Hockey League and Major League Volleyball.
Corporate brand sponsorships are moving in a similar direction. Per McKinsey, longtime WNBA sponsor Ally Financial recently announced a multiyear deal to become the league's official banking partner, and has since added rookie Paige Bueckers to its endorsement roster alongside Breanna Stewart and Sydney Colson.
Women's sports are drawing bigger audiences, attracting serious investment, generating billions in revenue, rapidly growing in value year after year, and securing better deals for players than ever before. But these victories only matter if the momentum behind them is sustained. Even with brands like Ally Financial and investors like Michele Kang building up women's teams and leagues, many women athletes are still forced to choose between their sport and a livable wage.
The work isn't done. Keeping the tide for women's sports rising means continuing to show up as fans, sponsors, broadcasters and investors. The business growth in women's sports is real, and so is the cost of walking away from it.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
