Our Women’s Sports Movement Is Charging Down The Field

For millions of residents across the Bay, we just experienced the first chance to root on a hometown pro National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team. Bay FC, our newest squad, kicked off their home opener in San Jose, anchored by soccer legends and owners Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner, Danielle Slaton, and Leslie Osborne–with an unprecedented level of excitement. Even without a victory, the thrilling game in front of 18,000 people electrified the crowd, sports fans, and our region.?

While the Bay Area has experienced fits and starts with women’s professional teams, this marks an enormous occasion with local pro women heroes to cheer on and area kids dreaming of one day taking the field for Bay FC or any of our burgeoning women’s pro teams. A movement is afoot and picking up major speed.

Oakland Soul, a USL W League pre-professional women's soccer team launched in 2023, heading toward full professional status, Bay FC is taking off, plus the WNBA’s Golden State expansion team tips off next year, already with 5000 season ticket deposits. For many of us women and girl athletes, coaches, fans, and supporters, we can’t believe our eyes–thrilled in this Bay Area fever dream of women’s sports happenings.

Deloitte forecasts in 2024 elite women’s sports will churn out revenue surpassing $1 billion. Yes, we’ve been fortunate to see luminaries like Serena and Venus Williams, Simone Biles, and Michelle Wie West storm the tennis, gymnastics, and golfing scenes for years now. Yet permanent city-based professional women’s sports haven’t taken off, sustainably, until recently. The NWSL has 14 clubs, the WNBA boasts 13 teams, with cities clamoring for more. In fact, just over half of American adults spent time watching or following women’s sports in the past year, according to one recent study. Strides include women’s March Madness college basketball, with record-breaking viewership. Communities are cheering on women athletes, and they’re increasingly garnering the attention and equity they deserve.?

Yet, we have much to do for girls and women in sports to increase equity, access, and opportunity so they can reach the greatest heights. Girls face huge barriers to play and stay with sport, such as cost, transportation, inequity, and social pressures. Women continue to encounter pay, facilities, and resource gaps akin to those tackled by the U.S. women’s national team.?To boot, girls who play sports not only get physical and mental benefits but graduate school at higher rates. Women in corporate executive roles are far more likely to have played sports growing up. Further, girls having played sports in high school are correlated to make 7% higher wages as adults. It makes dollars and?sense?to get girls in the game and level the playing field for women.?

With awareness, action plans, girl-supportive programming, and allyship from boys, men, and everyone, we can bridge gaps for girls and women. Our nonprofit, Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative (BAWSI), with fellow organizations, agencies, and leaders, school districts, and others are helping get and keep girls (and all kids!) in the game. Growing and celebrating women’s professional sports is one key piece of the puzzle.

See it to be it! Girls, youth, and everyone who witnessed Bay FC take the field in their sold-out home opener helps us drive down the field toward a more equitable, joyous and diverse sports and societal landscape.?

Kim Turner, JD, and Dana Weintraub, MD, are the Co-CEOs of Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative (BAWSI), a nonprofit providing free sports programs to girls in under-resourced communities and kids with disabilities.