{"id":91393,"date":"2020-06-25T08:59:06","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T13:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=91393&preview=true&preview_id=91393"},"modified":"2020-10-08T23:33:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T04:33:16","slug":"womens-professional-sports-leagues-utilize-social-media-to-continue-pre-pandemic-growth-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/womens-professional-sports-leagues-utilize-social-media-to-continue-pre-pandemic-growth-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s professional sports leagues utilize social media to continue pre-pandemic growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Leah Vann<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler stands against the blue backdrop of a team-themed blanket, staring into a camera to address nearly 1,000 fans sitting in front of their screens on the other end of a Zoom call on Thursday, April 30, 2020.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the annual unveiling of the new team\u2019s jerseys, called a, \u201cKit Launch,\u201d and it was supposed to be the largest ever jersey unveiling event, where 250 fans would gather at Pinstripes on Chicago\u2019s riverfront raising their signature cocktails to toast what should\u2019ve been the start of the most exciting season of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League yet. While the in-person event would\u2019ve been more fun, the online version of it attracted more fans from across the country.<\/p>\n

The room for growth in women\u2019s sports exceeds men\u2019s. Before the pandemic\u2019s impact, Deloitte projected that the rise of women\u2019s sports in 2020 would dominate the sports industry<\/a> and that \u201csponsors should consider getting involved now to capitalize on the new opportunities and avenues for engagement that this growth area may create.\u201d<\/p>\n

On March 12, that dream of a record-breaking season came to a halt when Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, making the NBA the first domino to fall in what was a chain of professional sports postponements and cancellations. The pandemic\u2019s impact was especially disheartening for women\u2019s professional sports, where teams were anxious to continue their pre-pandemic growth.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Despite the setback, the NWSL, WNBA, LPGA and NWHL have all found that creative social media content is attracting more eyes than they anticipated. That popularity generated through social media could cultivate a promising future for post-pandemic women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

Dr. Mary Jo Kane, founder and former director of the Tucker Center and professor of sport sociology at the University of Minnesota, believes the social media trends of women\u2019s professional sports leagues throughout the pandemic proves their market potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who are the gatekeepers of the coverage of men’s sports, what they’re most concerned about is not that nobody’s interested in women’s sports, but far too many people would be interested in women’s sports,\u201d Kane said. \u201cThey have so monopolized coverage for so long that, and this isn’t just about men or men\u2019s sports, but anybody who holds a position of privilege and power is not anxious to give it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the most famous professional female athletes, Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, host a live show on Instagram, hosting guests like Jimmy Butler, Katie Nolan, Diana Taurasi and her wife Penny Taylor, and attracting more than 5-9,000 viewers. It is one of many examples of how female professional athletes are taking advantage of the social media platform to keep women\u2019s professional sports on people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink what they could do if they actually have resources,\u201d ESPN broadcaster Holly Rowe said while speaking with students from her apartment in Brooklyn to the University of Texas at Austin over Zoom on May 5.<\/p>\n

Chicago Red Stars model social media engagement activities for a diverse audience<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The NWSL was poised for a record-setting year in growth, with a newly signed three-year TV deal with Twitch and CBS All-Access coming off a year of a 22% increase in game attendance, according to Soccer Stadium Digest.<\/p>\n

The Red Stars were supposed to kick off their season on April 18, but now, with the fan-less Challenge Cup coming up on June 27, the team\u2019s only source of revenue is coming from selling its latest jersey, titled, the \u201cThe Neighborhood Kit,\u201d which has the Chicago flag plastered across the torso, its blue stripes constructed from the names of Chicago\u2019s 77 neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Red Stars maintain and even grow their popularity through their Twitter feed, which is flooded with fun activities for all ages: storytime with head coach Rory Dames (#StoryWithRory), game nights for adults over Twitch (#CRSAfterHours) and daily doses of fitness (#DDOF) with players. Each day, a schedule of online events is tweeted out coupled with #MyKindofContent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just decided that we had to very quickly switch our focus from being leaders on the pitch to being leaders in human connection and community engagement,\u201d said Chicago Red Stars marketing director Lindsay Goldner.<\/p>\n

Red Stars defender Hannah Davison met with Brescia University\u2019s women\u2019s soccer team over a Zoom call after a coach reached out to her through social media. The team is based in Owensboro, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked them through my journey, and the coach specifically asked me to talk about intrinsic motivation and competitiveness from within and what it takes to get to this next level,\u201d Davison said. \u201cThey said that they are going to come to a game, so any kind of opportunities that we have to get our name out there, the fans are wanting to come out and see us play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as the nation rallies together to protest police brutality, former U.S. women\u2019s national team member and current ESPN commentator Julie Foudy says the Red Stars have been mindful about their tone with both marketing and supporting social change. That authenticity translates to international sponsors like Secret, P&G and Verizon, who want to make sure they are supporting an inclusive brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir content over social media and kind of their branding during this time, it strikes the right tone,\u201d Foudy said. \u201cIt\u2019s women, it\u2019s families, people who cherish the idea of women having the opportunity to play a professional sport and make a living. It\u2019s an educated demo that cares deeply about people and causes and making this world better.\u201d<\/p>\n

WNBA capitalizes on Twitter and Instagram popularity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In a joint HORSE challenge with the NBA, Chicago Sky guard Allie Quigley sat to the left of her basketball hoop between the lane line and 3-point line to lob a bank shot during the HORSE challenge on ESPN. Chicago Bulls point guard Zach LaVine\u2019s shot kissed the rim, giving him an \u201cH\u201d in the challenge on April 16 competition.<\/p>\n

Quigley\u2019s shot became a viral social media sensation when Sky CEO Adam Fox\u2019s daughter tried her hand at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went out to get groceries and my younger daughter, Phoebe, 15, had watched the HORSE tournament and she went out in the driveway and she decided to try that sitting down shot,\u201d Fox said. \u201cAnd she made it, so she got my wife to come out and film her doing it, and by the time I came home, she was like, \u2018Hey dad I\u2019m on Twitter now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Phoebe tweeted the video to Quigley, who commended her performance with an invitation to play HORSE someday. But that invitation turned into much more when the Sky\u2019s PR department decided Quigley should market the shot as a twitter challenge, naming it the #QuarantineQuigleyChallenge.<\/p>\n

\n

That\u2019s impressive!!! We might have to play horse one day what do ya think?!? 😬 https:\/\/t.co\/keSeLcQXVk<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alexandria Quigley (@alliequigley) April 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our players are having downtime for the first time ever, so they’re able to do things like the Quigley quarantine challenge,\u201d said Kelly Kane, director of media relations for the Chicago Sky. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying out new things that our team wants to do. They’re dealing with the same kind of problems everyone else is.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was especially true for Sky forward Cheyenne Parker, who admitted she struggled without being able to play the game she loved. Her motivation lapsed in quarantine, but when her former college teammate, Jasmine Nesbitt, reached out about leading creative at-home workouts through Instagram live, Parker knew she had the platform to help her friend\u2019s following, increase her visibility as a player and do something to lift her own spirits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had people ask me what type of food I eat and what type of workout to do,\u201d Parker said. \u201cI love when people reach out, it\u2019s super inspiring to me. I\u2019m definitely all about trying to build the WNBA brand in any way I can and that has to be an individual job as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

LPGA sees an opportunity for pure, intimate storytelling through social media<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s easy for individuals to pick up their phones and create original content. That\u2019s what Kelly Schultz, vice president of communications for the LPGA has found.<\/p>\n

After the LPGA completed its most recent tournament on Feb. 16 in Australia, the organization had to find ways to keep fans across the world on different platforms engaged.<\/p>\n

Schultz said that the sports coverage on television looks different during the pandemic: there\u2019s little use of state-of-the-art studios, more at-home Zoom calls and fewer graphics. That informal production of sports television has lowered the bar for any sports content at all. She believes fans are not driven away from sports content by this lack of production quality, which might be why they turn to social media for a more intimate look into athletes\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re seeing them [women golfers] create more content on their own,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cThey\u2019re realizing they can do that and people are really looking for that and wanting to engage with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Schultz, despite the fewer tournaments, the LPGA has seen social media engagement increase.<\/p>\n

Athletes are teaching viewers important swing dynamics through instructional videos with athletes using golf simulators. Through the World Golf Tour videogame, fans can watch and listen to the friendly banter between players alongside commentary from Tom Abbott and Karen Stupples from Golf Channel and Henni Zu\u00ebl from GolfTV.<\/p>\n

Mexico\u2019s Gaby L\u00f3pez took over the LPGA\u2019s Instagram for a day-in-the-life feature while American golfer Angela Stanford took fans on a tour of her Texas home, showing everything down to her cans of Dr. Pepper, shelves of memorabilia and backyard golf simulator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what this has just shown is how people still relate to the storytelling and the athletes themselves,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n

NWHL\u2019s twitter draft proves successful <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The NWHL Twitter draft used star-studded guest appearances to attract record viewership.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s hockey, so far, has been the least affected by the pandemic, but is still a fledgling league working through innovative ways to grow. This past season, the NWHL\u2019s games attracted 8 million views through Twitch.<\/p>\n

The pandemic only eliminated the league\u2019s final game, the Isobel Cup, and the Twitter draft was next on the calendar already.<\/p>\n

But because of the lull in sports, the NWHL took advantage of people\u2019s time, inviting sports moguls from other professional sports leagues like the commissioner of the National Lacrosse League, WNBA players like Natalie Achonwa (Indiana Fever, Canadian National Team) and Rachel Banham (Minnesota Lynx), the director of USA Hockey and ESPN reporters to participate in its annual Twitter draft, which, as a result, helped attract more eyes than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve always done our draft on Twitter, but we got over half a million eyes, which was like a 215% growth for our draft,\u201d said NWHL Player\u2019s Association director Anya Packer. \u201cNow if you take what we did versus what the NFL did by having a video of [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell in his basement, that was pretty boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Packer said she believes digital creativity is an essential skill for women\u2019s sports because they don\u2019t have the broadcast footprint that men\u2019s sports have.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, it lends to watching women immediately flip a switch to showing at-home training videos or posting more on TikTok because that\u2019s what you have to do,\u201d Packer said.<\/p>\n

Bringing in the revenue<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The WTA, while enduring the postponement of the French Open on March 20 and cancellation of Wimbledon on April 1, is already the most popular women\u2019s sport in the world thanks to former pioneers like Billie Jean King and current 23-time grand slam champion Serena Williams.<\/p>\n

On May 6, the WTA decided to take additional steps to continue that trend by merging with the ATP.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this kind of an unexpected pause can do is it can make you sort of rethink everything from how you’re living your life to your company or companies that you’re affiliated with,\u201d said former tennis player and current ESPN broadcaster Pam Shriver. \u201cI can’t think of a company that’s not making significant adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic\u2019s biggest blow to women\u2019s professional sports that aren\u2019t as widely televised as the WTA is attendance. While season ticket holders can choose to maintain their tickets to support the team, they still lose out on non-season-ticket holders.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s all the more reason for sponsors to invest in women\u2019s professional sports now, according to the NWHL\u2019s Packer, because it\u2019s cheap to get involved and has the potential to grow as an investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of money that it takes for a company to meaningfully support a women\u2019s league is so vastly different than what it takes to have the smallest piece of attachment for a men\u2019s league,\u201d Packer said. \u201cSo, we’ve not seen that huge rollback because we’re not expecting hundreds of millions of dollars from our sponsors\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Rowe also suspects that from a consumer standpoint, women\u2019s sports might have an advantage in a post-pandemic world when people have less disposable income.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe families who are cutting back might go to a WNBA game because they can go to four or five WNBA games for the price of one NBA game,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n

Allen Sanderson, a professor at the University of Chicago who researches the economics of sports, said that\u2019s not likely.<\/p>\n

Using baseball as an example, Sanderson said the majority of fans wouldn\u2019t be able to tell the difference between a AAA player and MLB player without the name on the jersey, but there\u2019s a noticeable difference between watching men\u2019s and women\u2019s sports. Still, he doesn\u2019t believe women\u2019s sports are always an easy substitute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect fans will gravitate back to what they were doing before [the pandemic],\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cIf people really wanted to watch the WNBA, trust me: ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN would make sure everybody knew when the games were on.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what the pandemic has shown is that women\u2019s sports are captivating eyes, and as long as they keep it up, fans will want more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat some of these teams are doing on social media right now is making that visceral connection, either through players or what their team accounts are doing,\u201d Foudy said. \u201cIt\u2019s so important because maybe that’s the difference of a family trying it out for the first time or not. Once they get there, they\u2019re going to end up loving it. The challenge is getting them in there for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago Red Stars defender Hannah Davison dribbles the ball in a preseason game against the Seattle Reign on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, at Merlo Field. Davison has spent her COVID-19 quarantine filming online workouts and connecting with fans through Zoom calls. (Craig Mitchelldyer\/ isiphotos.com)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Leah Vann Medill Reports Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler stands against the blue backdrop of a team-themed blanket, staring into a camera to address nearly 1,000 fans sitting in front of their screens on the other end of a Zoom call on Thursday, April 30, 2020. It\u2019s the annual unveiling of the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":91399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5029,28,31,5008],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-91393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-general-interest","category-sports","category-spring-2020","tag-promo"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen's professional sports leagues utilize social media to continue pre-pandemic growth - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/womens-professional-sports-leagues-utilize-social-media-to-continue-pre-pandemic-growth-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women's professional sports leagues utilize social media to continue pre-pandemic growth - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Leah Vann Medill Reports Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler stands against the blue backdrop of a team-themed blanket, staring into a camera to address nearly 1,000 fans sitting in front of their screens on the other end of a Zoom call on Thursday, April 30, 2020. 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