Women's professional sports are a relatively new phenomenon, having largely emerged within the latter part of the 20th century. Unlike amateur women athletes,
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...
women
athlete
An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance.
Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-devel ...
s are able to acquire an income which allows them to earn a living without requiring another source of income. In international terms, most top female athletes are not paid and work full-time or part-time jobs in addition to their training, practice, and competition schedules. Professional organizations for women in sport are most common in developed countries where there are investors available to buy teams and businesses which can afford to sponsor them in exchange for publicity and the opportunity to promote a variety of their products. Very few governments support
professional sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
, male or female. Today there are a number of
professional women's sport leagues in the United States and Canada.
History
From the 1800s, in Western Europe and some other countries, women's physiology was described as delicate or weaker compared to men, and whose purpose, drive, and energy should solely be directed towards bearing and raising children. Medical rationalities of the time presented concerns on the effects of what may happen to a female's reproductive system and functionality if women were to participate in sports. “Violent movements of the body can cause a shift in the position and a loosening of the uterus as well as prolapse and bleeding, with resulting sterility, thus defeating a woman’s true purpose in life, i.e., the bringing forth of strong children.” The theory of frailty communicates women to naturally be weak and frail in comparison to men. However, if women were to hold any means of power or strength, it is only through having the energy to draw on in a crisis from motherhood instincts to protect their children.
Aesthetic rationalities were driven by the prospect that attractive and pretty girls could not participle in sports because that would diminish their desirable qualities. Though some would argue that “unattractive girls are comparatively good sports. Pretty girls are not. The ugly ducklings have taken to sport as an escape and to compensate for whatever it is they lack, sex appeal, charm, ready-made beauty.” The aesthetic commentary on women in professional fields of sports dealt with concern that participation made women unattractive.
With the act of viewing female athletes in professional competitions was damaging to your eyes.
, a founder of the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
, conveys in witnessing a female Olympic participant of the winter sport
bob-sleighing, “Seeing a lady with her skirts lifted sliding in this position, usually scratching up the runway with two small pointed sticks which she holds in her hands and which help her to steer the sleigh, that sight represents a true offense to the eyes. Nothing uglier could be imagined.” The involvement of females within the Olympic Games started in the 1982 Games, where three hundred women competed. Since then, female participation has gradually grown, with the number of female participants in
1988 Seoul Games having female participants make up one-fourth of the athletes.
The social presentation that kept women from involving themselves in professional sports was from the fear that women's participation in professional sports would threaten the male depiction and ideals of sports. In 1902, the United States Lawn Tennis Association changed women's five sets matches, which the male athletes play presently, to the best of three sets format. This decision was dictated by the unsettlement of the rigorous work that women could not keep up with in accordance to the men's games.
Beginning in the late 1960s, a few women gained enough recognition for their athletic talent and social acceptance as role models to earn a living playing sports. Most of these were in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Among them was
Joan Weston
Joan Weston or Joanie Weston (January 20, 1935 – May 10, 1997), known as the "Blonde Bomber", "Blonde Amazon", "Golden Girl", and "Roller Derby Queen", was an American athlete and was the most famous personality in the original Roller Derby.
B ...
, a
roller derby
Roller derby is a roller skating contact sport played by two teams of fifteen members. Roller derby is played by approximately 1,250 amateur leagues worldwide, mostly in the United States.
Game play consists of a series of short scrimmages (jam ...
star who was once the highest-paid female in sports, but she was the exception rather than the rule.
Things began to change in 1973 when
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States ...
won "the
Battle of the Sexes" and cracked the
glass ceiling
A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.Federal Glass Ceiling Commission''Solid Investments: Making Full ...
on pay for female athletes. Other players, like
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...
, broke through that ceiling as well, decreasing the gap between women and men athletes' pay on a regular basis rather than occasionally.
Even now, in the 21st century, most professional women's athletes around the world receive very little notoriety or pay compared to men. ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' acknowledged the importance of King's achievement in 1990 by naming her one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century."
Associations
United Women's Sports LLC (UWS) is a
professional sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
company founded in 2016 in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, United States. Operating women's professional sports leagues as a financially sustainable sports entertainment product, UWS works toward raising awareness of women in sports. Part of its mission also includes providing opportunities for women to work in sports, including disciplines such as marketing, on-air, production, operations, and finance.
Founded by
Digit Murphy
Margaret Pearl "Digit" Murphy (née Degidio; born December 7, 1961) is an American ice hockey coach, administrator, and former college ice hockey player. She is president of the Toronto Six of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL).
Murphy h ...
, she serves as Chief Executive Officer, while Aronda Kirby, a former General Manager with the
Boston Blades
The Worcester Blades were a professional women's ice hockey team in the Canadian Women's Hockey League, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, and played their home games at the Fidelity Bank Worcester Ice Center. The team began play in the 2010–11 ...
, holds the title of Chief Operations Officer. Their first venture involved lacrosse, with the launch of
UWLX
The United Women’s Lacrosse League (UWLX) was a women's lacrosse league in the United States. It was co-founded in Boston, Massachusetts, by Digit Murphy and Aronda Kirby of the Play It Forward Sports Foundation, under the ownership of Unite ...
taking place in the summer of 2016. In the aftermath of the inaugural season, the Long Island Sound emerged as league champions.
In addition to the
UWLX
The United Women’s Lacrosse League (UWLX) was a women's lacrosse league in the United States. It was co-founded in Boston, Massachusetts, by Digit Murphy and Aronda Kirby of the Play It Forward Sports Foundation, under the ownership of Unite ...
, Murphy and Kirby are both co-founders of the Play It Forward Sports Foundation, with the goal of advancing gender equity in sports at all levels of play. With the objective of providing more opportunities for women in sports as professional athletes, coaches, and managers, the model for Play It Forward Sports also allows female athletes a chance to participate in the community by educating, training, and mentoring young female athletes, providing them with earning potential.
Athlete ambassadors for Play It Forward include
Molly Schaus
Molly Patricia Schaus (born July 29, 1988) is an American retired ice hockey goaltender and coach. As a member of the United States women's national ice hockey team, she was a two-time Ice hockey at the Olympic Games, Olympic medalist and five-ti ...
, along with tennis players Neha Uberoi and Shikha Uberoi. In addition, Schaus is part of the Foundation's Board, which includes Valarie Gelb, Debbie Mckay, and John Mayers.
United States
Though women have been pro athletes in the United States since the early 1900s, paid teams and leagues are still uncommon and, as of 2013, female athletes are paid far less than their male counterparts. For instance, the
WNBA had its first season in 1997, 51 years after the inception of the men's
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
. The WNBA (under the NBA Board of Governors) pays the top women's players less than 1% of the salary that the top men's players are capable of earning; in 2021, the maximum salary for any WNBA player was $221,450, while the maximum NBA salary was $38,199,000. In 2005, the WNBA team salary cap was $0.673 million; by 2021, this amount had nearly doubled to $1.339 million. However, during this period, the NBA's cap more than doubled, from $43.87 million in 2005 to $109.14 million in 2021.
The
Women's United Soccer Association
The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first Women's association football, women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000 in sports, 2000, the league began its first se ...
became the first American women's pro league in 2001, but lasted only briefly because of financial sponsorship. Fans enjoyed women's pro soccer for three seasons before executives announced the suspension of the league, despite the
women's national soccer team (USWNT) rating it as one of the world's top teams. The absence of a
Women's professional football (soccer)
Women's association football, more commonly known simply as women's football or women's soccer, is a team sport of association football when played by women only. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries and 176 national te ...
league in the United States made it difficult for the USWNT to find new players until
Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...
was founded. A 2004 effort to revive the WUSA was launched. On September 4, 2007, a new North American women's professional football league, tentatively named Women's Soccer LLC, was announced, and ultimately launched in 2009 as
Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...
. That league folded after its 2012 season, with the current
National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...
established later that year and beginning play in 2013.
Soccer
The
Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...
league, formed in September 2007, began its league play in March 2009. In its final season in 2011, there were six teams in the eastern United States. The WPS canceled the 2012 season when the number of teams dropped to five after
Dan Borislow
Daniel Marc Borislow (September 21, 1961 – July 21, 2014) was an American entrepreneur, sports team owner, inventor, and thoroughbred horse breeder. Borislow was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Widener Universi ...
's team in
South Florida
South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...
magicJack was terminated by the league. The WPS hoped to continue the season in 2013 with at least six teams and eight in the 2014 season, but ultimately folded in May 2012 because of legal and financial troubles.
In November 2012, the US, Mexican, and Canadian soccer federations announced the establishment of the
National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...
, which began to play in 2013. The US and Canadian federations remain involved with the NWSL; the Mexican federation withdrew after establishing
Liga MX Femenil
The Liga MX Femenil, officially known as the Liga BBVA MX Femenil for sponsorship reasons, is the highest division of women's football in Mexico. Supervised by the Mexican Football Federation, this professional league has 18 teams, each coincidi ...
in 2016.
The National Women's Soccer team saw the loss of the
Boston Breakers
The Boston Breakers were an American professional soccer club based in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. The team competed in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). They replaced the original Breakers, who competed in the defunct Women's ...
in January 2018. The Boston Breakers were one of the earliest women's professional teams starting in 2000 under the Women's United Soccer Association. Despite continuing to switch leagues throughout the years, the Boston Breakers continued to find funding for the team. When the team folded in 2018 due to a lack of funding, the league held a draft for the players on the Boston Breakers.
Baseball
With the entry of the United States into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, several major league baseball executives started a new professional league with women players in order to maintain baseball in the public eye
while the majority of able men were away. The founders included
Philip K. Wrigley,
Branch Rickey
Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an American baseball player and sports executive. Rickey was instrumental in breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing black player Jackie Robinson. He also creat ...
, and
Paul V. Harper
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
* Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
. They feared that
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
might even temporarily cease due to the war because of the loss of talent,
as well as restrictions on team travel due to gasoline rationing.
Since many men were on the battlefield during the Second World War, the
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was a professional women's baseball league founded by Philip K. Wrigley which existed from 1943 to 1954. The AAGPBL is the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the Uni ...
(AAGPBL), in place of Major League Baseball, was created in 1943 to provide entertainment for people exhausted by the war. It was such a success that the number of people who attended women's baseball games reached almost 1 million in 1948. Yet, when the war ended and Major League Baseball players came back home, female baseball players were obliged to fill the role of a housewife at home. AAGPBL lost its audience, struggled with finances, and ceased to exist in 1954. The
National Girls Baseball League
The National Girls Baseball League (NGBL) was a professional women's baseball league which existed from 1944 to 1954, with teams based in Chicago, Illinois. The National Girls Baseball League started a year after the All-American Girls Professi ...
operated in the same era (1944-1954), drawing 500,000 in some seasons.
Forty years later, in 1994, a businessman in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
struck a $3 million sponsorship deal with
Coors and formed a women's professional baseball team called the
Colorado Silver Bullets
The Colorado Silver Bullets were an all-female professional baseball team that played in the United States from 1994 to 1997. The Bullets were the first such team since the folding of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1954.
...
. About 20 members were selected from 1,300 baseball players nationwide for the team. The Bullets played games with both men's semiprofessional teams and regional teams. After the birth of the
Ladies League Baseball
After the movie ''A League of Their Own'', a fictional movie based on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, several women's baseball leagues were attempted, including Ladies League Baseball, which began play in 1997. The first five ...
in 1997, it included four teams. The Bullets fought with them.
The Ladies League Baseball changed its name to the Ladies Pro Baseball and added two teams into the league in 1998. However, after the first month, the league was suspended due to the financial difficulties of its sponsors. The Bullets folded in 1998 after Coors terminated its contract.
Basketball
There are many countries where women's professional basketball leagues exist besides the United States, such as Italy, Germany, Spain, and Brazil. Many American players went overseas, and some
WNBA players play basketball in foreign countries during
WNBA's off-season.
The
Women's Professional Basketball League
The Women's Professional Basketball League (abbreviated WBL) was a professional women's basketball league in the United States. The league played three seasons from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1981. The league was the first professional w ...
(WBL) was a professional women's basketball league in the United States. The league played three seasons from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1981. The league is generally considered to be the first American professional women's basketball league to be founded. The next league was the
Women's American Basketball Association
The Women's American Basketball Association (WABA) is a league that began in 2017 with seven teams. It now has over 20 teams across the country. Season 4 was cancelled in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. There have been previous women's ...
and the
Women's Basketball Association
The Women's Basketball Association (WBA or WWBA) was the first women's professional basketball summer league, operating from 1992 to 1995. The league was called the WWBA and WBA for the first All-Star tour in 1992, before settling on WBA. The pion ...
(WBA) The WABA/WBA was a professional women's basketball league in the United States. The league played three seasons from the summer of 1993 to the summer of 1995. The league is considered to be the first American professional women's basketball league to be successful as a summer league, like the
WNBA. Also, the
American Basketball League (ABL) was founded in 1996 during an increase in interest in the sport following the 1996 Summer Olympics. The league played two full seasons (1996–97 and 1997–98) and started a third (1998–99) before it folded on December 22, 1998.
Golf
The
LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association) was founded in 1950 and is the longest-running women's professional sports association.
Horse racing
In 1906 Lula Olive Gill became the first female jockey to win a horse race in California. Later that same year, Ada Evans Dean rode her own horse to victory after her jockey had become ill. Indeed, Dean won twice — in spite of never having raced before.
Kathy Kusner mounted a successful legal case in 1968 to become the first licensed female jockey in the United States. Since the age of 16, she had been regularly winning unrecognized flat and timber races. As a licensed jockey, she rode races up and down the eastern seaboard and Canada and became the first licensed female jockey to ride races in Mexico, Germany, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Panama, South Africa, and what was then Rhodesia. She was also the first woman to ride in the Maryland Hunt Cup, widely considered the toughest timber race in the world. ABC Television filmed an award-winning documentary in Saratoga about Kusner being the first woman in modern times to ride in a steeplechase at the racetrack.
Ice hockey
The National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), now called the
Premier Hockey Federation
The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...
(PHF), is a women's professional
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
league
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
Sports
* Sports league
* Rugby league, full contact footba ...
in the United States. The league was established in 2015 with four teams.
The league has since grown to seven teams: the
Boston Pride
The Boston Pride are a professional women's ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They are one of the four charter franchises of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL; 2015–2021). The ...
,
Buffalo Beauts
The Buffalo Beauts are a professional ice hockey team based in Amherst, New York, United States. The team was established in 2015 as one of the four founding franchises of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), originally named the National Women' ...
,
Connecticut Whale,
Metropolitan Riveters
The Metropolitan Riveters (originally the New York Riveters) are a professional women's ice hockey team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with home games at the American Dream Meadowlands ice rink.
They were one of the four charter franchi ...
,
Minnesota Whitecaps
The Minnesota Whitecaps are a professional ice hockey team in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF; formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League). They play in Richfield, Minnesota, part of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, at ...
, and two Canadian teams, the
Montreal Force
The Montreal Force (french: la Force de Montréal) are a professional ice hockey team in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). They are based in Montreal, Quebec and practice at the Verdun Auditorium. The team was established in 2022 and debuted ...
and
Toronto Six
The Toronto Six is a professional women's ice hockey team based in Toronto playing out of Canlan Ice Sports – York. They are one of two Canadian teams in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) (formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League ...
. The league debuted as the first women's professional ice hockey league to pay its players.
Lacrosse
The United Women's Lacrosse League is a professional
Women's lacrosse
Women's lacrosse (or girls' lacrosse), sometimes shortened to lax, is a sport with twelve players on the field at a time (including the goalkeeper). Originally played by indigenous peoples of the Americas, the modern women's game was introduce ...
league in the United States that was co-founded in Boston, Massachusetts by
Digit Murphy
Margaret Pearl "Digit" Murphy (née Degidio; born December 7, 1961) is an American ice hockey coach, administrator, and former college ice hockey player. She is president of the Toronto Six of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL).
Murphy h ...
and
Aronda Kirby of the Play It Forward Sports Foundation in a strategic partnership with
STX. Penn State alum and former United States national team player
Michele DeJuliis was appointed as the league's commissioner.
The inaugural season saw four teams with rosters hailing from Baltimore, Boston, Long Island, and Philadelphia. The names of the founding four clubs are the
Baltimore Ride
The Baltimore Ride were a United Women's Lacrosse League (UWLX) professional women's field lacrosse team based in Baltimore, Maryland. They played in the UWLX since the 2016 season. In the 2016 season, the four teams in the UWLX played in a ba ...
,
Boston Storm,
Long Island Sound
Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...
and
Philadelphia Force
The Philadelphia Force was a women's professional softball team based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. From 2006 to 2009, it played as a member of National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) league until a failed sale in September 2009 put an end to the team on hia ...
. Regular season play was scheduled to start on May 28, 2016, as a draft took place on April 13 to fill the four-team rosters. In the inaugural draft, Maryland Terrapins alumnus and former US national team player
Katie Schwarzmann
Katie Schwarzmann (born September 15, 1991) is an American women’s lacrosse player. Having played with the Maryland Terrapins at the collegiate level, she was a two-time winner of the Tewaaraton Trophy. She was also a member of the US national ...
would be the first-ever player selected, taken by the Baltimore Ride with the top pick. The inaugural regular-season champions were the Long Island Sound, while Dana Dobbie captured the regular-season scoring title.
Softball
The first women's professional softball league was established in 1976, but it only lasted for four years because of its financial reasons and failure in marketing. In 1994, the
National Pro Fastpitch
National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), formerly the Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL), was a professional women's softball league in the United States. The teams battled for the Cowles Cup.
The WPSL was founded in 1997 and folded in 2001; the NPF revive ...
emerged to prepare a rebirth of the professional league, which came into existence with 6 teams in 1997. As of 2012, the league has 4 teams that play 44 games each and then participate in the Championship Series.
The league is expected to expand "due to ongoing expansion efforts".
Tennis
The
Women's Tennis Association
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. It governs the WTA Tour which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women and was founded to create a better future for women's tenni ...
(WTA) was founded in 1973 with
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States ...
at the forefront. It is widely considered the most (financially) successful organization in all of women's professional sports. The WTA has over 2,500 players from 92 nations, and it has over $100 million in prize money for 54 tournaments and 4 Grand Slams in 33 countries.
The United States has hosted the
US Open, one of four annual major tennis tournaments, since 1887. Many tennis tournaments, including the US Open, allow women to play individually (singles), and on teams of two (two women: doubles; one woman and one man: mixed doubles).
Notably successful American female tennis players include
Elizabeth Ryan
Elizabeth Montague Ryan (February 5, 1892 – July 6, 1979) was an American tennis player who was born in Anaheim, California, but lived most of her adult life in the United Kingdom. Ryan won 26 Grand Slam titles, 19 in women's doubles and mix ...
,
Molla Bjurstedt Mallory
Anna Margrethe "Molla" Bjurstedt Mallory (née Bjurstedt; 6 March 1884 – 22 November 1959) was a Norwegian tennis player, naturalized American. She won a record eight singles titles at the U.S. National Championships. She was the first woman ...
,
Helen Wills Moody
Helen Newington Wills (October 6, 1905 – January 1, 1998), also known by her married names Helen Wills Moody and Helen Wills Roark, was an American tennis player. She won 31 Grand Slam tournament titles (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles) d ...
,
Louise Brough Clapp
Althea Louise Brough Clapp (née Brough; March 11, 1923 – February 3, 2014) was an American tennis player. In her career between 1939 and 1959, she won six Grand Slam singles titles as well as numerous doubles and mixed-doubles titles. At the ...
,
Margaret Osborne DuPont
Margaret Osborne duPont (born Margaret Evelyn Osborne; March 4, 1918 – October 24, 2012) was a world No. 1 American female tennis player.
DuPont won a total of 37 singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles, which places ...
,
Doris Hart,
Maureen Connolly
Maureen Catherine Connolly-Brinker (née Connolly; September 17, 1934 – June 21, 1969), known as "Little Mo", was an American tennis player, the winner of nine major singles titles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she became the first woman to win ...
,
Althea Gibson
Althea Neale Gibson (August 25, 1927September 28, 2003) was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first African American ...
,
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States ...
,
Chris Evert
Christine Marie Evert (born December 21, 1954), known as Chris Evert Lloyd from 1979 to 1987, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. Evert won 18 major singles titles, including a record seven French Open titles and a joint-record ...
,
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...
,
Pam Shriver
Pamela Howard Shriver (born July 4, 1962) is an American former professional tennis player and current tennis broadcaster and pundit. During the 1980s and 1990s, Shriver won 133 titles, including 21 singles titles, 111 women's doubles titles, an ...
,
Gigi Fernández
Beatriz "Gigi" Fernández (born February 22, 1964) is a Puerto Rican former professional tennis player.
Fernández won 17 major doubles titles and two Olympic gold medals representing the United States, and reached the world No. 1 ranking in do ...
,
Venus Williams
Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is ...
, and
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
.
Notably successful active American female tennis players include
Venus Williams
Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is ...
,
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
,
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Bethanie Mattek-Sands ( Bethanie Lynn Mattek; born March 23, 1985) is an American professional tennis player. She has won nine Grand Slam titles (five in women's doubles and four in mixed doubles), and an Olympic gold medal, and is a former wo ...
,
Sloane Stephens
Sloane Stephens (born March 20, 1993) is an American professional tennis player. She achieved a career-best ranking of world No. 3 after Wimbledon in 2018. Stephens was the 2017 US Open champion, and has won seven WTA Tour singles titles in t ...
, and
Sofia Kenin
Sofia Anna "Sonya" Kenin (born November 14, 1998) is an American professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) of No. 4 in the world, which she achieved on March 9, 2020. She was the 2020 WTA ...
.
Chris Evert
Christine Marie Evert (born December 21, 1954), known as Chris Evert Lloyd from 1979 to 1987, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. Evert won 18 major singles titles, including a record seven French Open titles and a joint-record ...
,
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...
, and
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
are considered, with other non-Americans such as
Margaret Court
Margaret Court (''née'' Smith; born 16 July 1942), also known as Margaret Smith Court, is an Australian retired former world No. 1 tennis player and a Christian minister. Considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, her 24 maj ...
and
Steffi Graf
Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, ...
, the best female tennis players of all time.
Volleyball & beach volleyball
The
Women's Professional Volleyball Association was established in 1986. The association organized professional 6-player indoor volleyball leagues and beach volleyball leagues, such as Budlight Pro Beach Volleyball League in 1997, in which 4 teams participated. It dissolved in 1997.
Major League Volleyball
Major League Volleyball (MLV) was a women's professional volleyball league in the United States. It was established in 1987 and disbanded during its third season on March 20, 1989.
The league was launched in 1987 with six teams consisting of ni ...
, a professional league, operated from 1987 to 1989.
Motorsports
Motorsports organizations allow men and women to compete on an equal footing.
Eight women qualified to the
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...
formula race:
Janet Guthrie
Janet Guthrie (born March 7, 1938) is a retired professional race car driver and the first woman to qualify and compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, both in 1977. She had first attempted to enter the Indianapolis 500 in 1 ...
(9th in 1978),
Lyn St. James
Lyn St. James (born Evelyn Gene Cornwall; March 13, 1947) is an American former race car driver. She competed in the IndyCar series, with eleven CART and five Indy Racing League starts to her name. St. James is one of nine women who have qualifi ...
(11th in 1992), Sarah Fisher, Danica Patrick (3rd in 2009 and 4th in 2005),
Simona de Silvestro,
Pippa Mann
Pippa Mann (born 11 August 1983) is a British racing car driver, who competes in the IndyCar Series. She was born in London, United Kingdom.
Career
Formula Renault
Mann began her career in 2003, after signing a three-race contract with Ma ...
,
Milka Duno
Milka Duno (born April 22, 1972) is a Venezuelan race car driver who competed in the IndyCar Series and ARCA Racing Series. She is best known for holding the record of highest finish for a female driver in the 24 Hours of Daytona. She entered ...
and
Ana Beatriz Figueiredo. They also raced at
American open wheel racing
American open-wheel car racing, also known as Indy car racing, is a category of professional automobile racing in the United States. As of 2022, the top-level American open-wheel racing championship is sanctioned by IndyCar.
Competitive events ...
(
USAC National Championship,
Champ Car
Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...
and
IndyCar Series
The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of ...
). The only one to win a race was Patrick at the
2008 Indy Japan 300; she scored several podiums and finished 5th in the
2009 IndyCar Series season, 6th in 2008, and 7th in 2007. Guthrie finished 5th in a USAC race in 1979. Fisher scored two podiums.
The most successful
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...
female drivers were
Sara Christian, who finished 5th in a
Cup Series
The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971, ...
race in 1949; Guthrie, who finished 6th in a 1977 round; and Patrick, who finished 4th in an
Xfinity Series
The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...
race.
In drag racing, Shirley Shahan was the first woman to win an
NHRA
The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is a drag racing governing body, which sets rules in drag racing and hosts events all over the United States and Canada. With over 40,000 drivers in its rosters, the NHRA claims to be the largest motorspo ...
national race, the 1966 Winternationals in the Top Stock class.
Shirley Muldowney
Shirley Muldowney (born June 19, 1940), also known professionally as "Cha Cha" and the "First Lady of Drag Racing", is an American auto racer. She was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a ...
was the first female drag racer to compete in
Top Fuel
Top Fuel is a type of drag racing whose dragsters are the quickest accelerating racing cars in the world and the fastest sanctioned category of drag racing, with the fastest competitors reaching speeds of and finishing the runs in 3.62 seconds ...
, the main class of the
National Hot Rod Association
The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is a drag racing governing body, which sets rules in drag racing and hosts events all over the United States and Canada. With over 40,000 drivers in its rosters, the NHRA claims to be the largest motorspo ...
, and won the 1977, 1980, and 1982 championships. Angelle Sampey won three consecutive Pro Stock Motorcycle titles from 2000 to 2002. Three of the daughters of drag racing legend
John Force
John Harold Force (born May 4, 1949 in Bell Gardens, California) is an American NHRA drag racer. He is a 16-time NHRA and 1 time AHRA Funny Car champion driver and a 22-time champion car owner. Force owns and drives for John Force Racing (J ...
—
Ashley Ashley is a place name derived from the Old English words '' æsc'' (“ash”) and '' lēah'' (“meadow”). It may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Ashley (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name ...
,
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
, and
Courtney
Courtney is a name of Old French origin, introduced into England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. It has two quite distinct interpretations: firstly, the surname may be locational, from places called Courtenay in the regions of Loiret and Gât ...
—followed in their father's footsteps as drivers. All three won multiple top-level NHRA events, Ashley and Courtney in
Funny Car
Funny Car is a type of drag racing vehicle and a specific racing class in organized drag racing. Funny cars are characterized by having tilt-up fiberglass or carbon fiber automotive bodies over a custom-fabricated chassis, giving them an appea ...
and Brittany in Top Fuel, and Brittany won the 2017 Top Fuel title.
Erica Enders-Stevens
Erica Lee Enders (born October 8, 1983 in Houston, Texas) is an American drag racing driver. Enders has won five championships in the Pro Stock class of the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series and she continues to drive full-time in that clas ...
won three season championships in
Pro Stock in the 2010s.
Milka Duno scored three overall wins at the
Rolex Sports Car Series
The Rolex Sports Car Series was the premier series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association. It was a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 under the name Grand American Road Racing Championship to replace the failed ...
.
Patrick has been receiving substantial mass media coverage since her first IndyCar season, starring in advertising campaigns in the United States and earning among the top 10 sportswomen.
Australia
Throughout the late 1800s and until the twentieth century, women were only allowed to swim. When swimming, they had to wear oversized bathing suits to protect themselves from being seen by men. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s when women wore more fitting bathing suits. In the 1900s, more teams started to emerge for women. A majority of the groups were lawn bowls and golf clubs, but in the 1930s, athletic clubs were created such as track and field. In the 1970s and so forth, gender specific sports teams had been created.
In Australia, the
Australian Institute of Sport
The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The Institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the ...
has started many programs to help women's golf.
The ANZ Championship launched in 2008 with 10 teams (five from Australia and five from New Zealand). The ANZ Championship was the first professional netball competition in Australasia and the world's best netball league until Australia's national federation pulled out of the league after its 2016 season. Today, Australia's top league is
Suncorp Super Netball
Suncorp Super Netball is the top level netball league featuring teams from Australia. In 2017 it replaced the ANZ Championship, which also included teams from New Zealand, as the top level netball league in Australia. Since 2019, the league has ...
and New Zealand's is the
ANZ Premiership
The ANZ Premiership is the top level netball league featuring teams from New Zealand. In 2017 it replaced the ANZ Championship, which also included teams from Australia, as the top level netball league in New Zealand. It is organised by Netball ...
.
Also in 2017, the Australian Football League launched
AFL Women's
AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, 1 ...
, a semi-professional competition in Australian rules football, with all sides operated by existing AFL men's clubs. In addition to AFL Women's, two other associations,
Cricket Australia
Cricket Australia (CA), formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the 'Australian Board of Control for International Crick ...
and
Australian Cricketer's Association, were made and were able to provide all Australian cricketers equal pay, no matter their gender.
Tennis
Australia has hosted one of four annual major tennis tournaments, the
Australian Open
The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Th ...
, since 1922.
Notably successful Australian female tennis players include:
Margaret Court
Margaret Court (''née'' Smith; born 16 July 1942), also known as Margaret Smith Court, is an Australian retired former world No. 1 tennis player and a Christian minister. Considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, her 24 maj ...
,
Evonne Goolagong Cawley
Evonne Fay Goolagong Cawley (née Goolagong; born 31 July 1951) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. Goolagong was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s.
At the age of 19, she won the French Open singl ...
,
Nancye Wynne Bolton
Nancye Wynne Bolton (née Wynne; 2 December 1916 – 9 November 2001) was a tennis player from Australia. She won the women's singles title six times at the Australian Championships, third only to Margaret Court's and Serena Williams' 11 and 7 ...
,
Thelma Coyne Long
Thelma Dorothy Coyne Long (née Coyne; 14 October 1918 – 13 April 2015) was an Australian tennis player and one of the female players who dominated Australian tennis from the mid-1930s to the 1950s. During her career she won 19 Grand Sla ...
,
Judy Tegart-Dalton
Judy Tegart Dalton (née Tegart; born 12 December 1937) is an Australian former professional tennis player. She won nine major doubles titles, and completed the career Grand Slam in women's doubles. Five of her doubles titles were with Marga ...
,
Daphne Akhurst
Daphne Jessie Akhurst (22 April 1903 – 9 January 1933) known also by her married name Daphne Cozens, was an Australian tennis player.
Akhurst won the women's singles title at the Australian Open, Australian Championships five times between ...
, and
Ashleigh Barty
Ashleigh is the feminine form of the Old English name Ashley (given name), Ashley, which means "dweller near the ash tree forest". It is most common in the United States and United Kingdom.
Notable people
B
*Ashleigh Ball (born 1983), Canadian ...
.
Notably successful active Australian female tennis players include
Samantha Stosur
Samantha Jane Stosur ( ; born 30 March 1984) is an Australian professional tennis player. She is a former world No. 1 in doubles, a ranking which she first achieved on 6 February 2006 and held for 61 consecutive weeks. Also a former top ten s ...
.
Cricket
Figures released by the
International Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are List of International Cricket Council members, 108 national associations, with 12 List of Internation ...
reveal that the
ICC Women's T20 World Cup
The ICC Women's T20 World Cup (known as the ICC Women's World Twenty20 until 2019) is the biennial international championship for women's Twenty20 International cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cri ...
2020 hosted by Australia was one of the most watched women's sporting events in history.
The event held a global audience of 89 million, which is 131% increase to the ICC Women's World T20 2018.
The final match between
Indian national women's cricket team and
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
set a record attendance ( 86,174 ) for a Women's sports match in Australia and second highest globally.
Sweden
Football
In the early twentieth century, the first ever women's football team was created in Sweden. About a year later, in Stockholm, the first match between two female-only teams took place. Between the years of 1910 and 1920, women played against 'gubblag', or old-boy sides, and any money the match made went back to the facility they were using or to charities. Also, in the span of those 10 years, society worked hard to make sure women's football was taken more seriously and that more matches were planned between women's teams. Soon after, a women's football league was created in Umeå, a coastal city in the northern part of Sweden.
Established in 1966, Öxabäck IF women's football team was the first team that worked hard to create all women football teams and to receive recognition as the first 'modern' women's football team. Two years later, women started to receive recognition in other sports in Sweden.
Canada
A number of professional sports opportunities for women athletes exist in Canada in both individual and team sports. For a time, Canada had a professional women's ice hockey league called the
Canadian Women's Hockey League
The Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL; french: Ligue canadienne de hockey féminin ‒ LCHF) was a women's ice hockey league. Established in 2007 as a Canadian women's senior league in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, and Ottawa, the league ...
(CWHL), but the league collapsed in 2019. In the late 2010s, increasing interest in women's soccer resulted in calls to consider the creation of a professional women’s soccer league.
Ice hockey
The
first organized women's ice hockey leagues started in Canada, as did the first-ever attempt at launching a women's professional league in the 1990s. The
Canadian Women's Hockey League
The Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL; french: Ligue canadienne de hockey féminin ‒ LCHF) was a women's ice hockey league. Established in 2007 as a Canadian women's senior league in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, and Ottawa, the league ...
(CWHL) had a relatively long period of existence with the last incarnation of the league beginning operations in 2007 then collapsing in 2019. The CWHL had many names: In the late 90s and early 2000s, it was the
National Women's Hockey League
The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...
(NWHL). Many of the CWHL's early players were culled from the NWHL after its demise in 2007. At the time, owners were losing money and unable to forge a cohesive plan for how to move the league forward. The prospect of not having a professional league for women left the world's top players with nowhere to play.
In the summer of 2007, a new initiative launched a player-run league. Along with players
Kathleen Kauth
Kathleen Anne Kauth (born March 28, 1979 in Saratoga Springs, New York) is an American ice hockey player, formerly playing for the Brampton Thunder, when they were affiliated with the NWHL.
Playing career
USA Hockey
Kauth made the pre-Olympic ...
,
Kim McCullough
Kim or KIM may refer to:
Names
* Kim (given name)
* Kim (surname)
** Kim (Korean surname)
*** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties
**** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948
** Kim, Vietnamese f ...
,
Sami Jo Small
Sami Jo Small (born March 25, 1976) is a Canadian former ice hockey goaltender. As a member of the Canadian national team, she was a three-time Olympic medallist and four-time World Championship medallist. One of the founders of the now defun ...
,
Jennifer Botterill
Jennifer Botterill, (born May 1, 1979) is a Canadian former women's hockey player and current hockey broadcast television analyst who played for Harvard University, the Canadian national team, the Mississauga Chiefs, and the Toronto Aeros. Sh ...
,
Lisa-Marie Breton
Lisa-Marie Breton (born August 3, 1977) is an assistant coach with Les Canadiennes de Montréal (formerly Montreal Stars). For the 2010–11 Montreal CWHL season, Breton is the team captain. Breton has also competed for the Canada women's natio ...
and a group of business people, they formed the
Canadian Women's Hockey League
The Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL; french: Ligue canadienne de hockey féminin ‒ LCHF) was a women's ice hockey league. Established in 2007 as a Canadian women's senior league in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, and Ottawa, the league ...
(CWHL), following the example of the
National Lacrosse League
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's professional box lacrosse league in North America. The league is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The NLL currently has fifteen teams: ten in the United Stat ...
. The result was a non-profit organization that favoured a centralized league over the old ownership model. The new league would cover all basic travel, ice rental, uniforms and equipment costs for the league's 6 teams across Eastern Canada. Until the
2010-11 season, the players in the league had to pay over $1,000 each to play ice hockey. While these elite female hockey players hoped to make a living exclusively from playing someday, everyone involved in the CWHL from players to staff worked “pro bono,” and worked regular jobs and careers, some of whom were National Team athletes.
The entire CWHL collapsed in 2019, with the league stating that the cause was an unsustainable business model.
Tennis
Canadian professional tennis player
Bianca Andreescu
Bianca Vanessa Andreescu (; born June 16, 2000) is a Canadian professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world, and is the highest-ranked Canadian in the history of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Andreescu ...
won the
2019 US Open.
Denmark
In Denmark, women were allowed to participate in football in a football club or in school. In 1959, the manager of a sports club, Allan Andersen, noticed that many of the women's sports activities were not receiving the funding needed. Allan Andersen saw student nurses at a nearby hospital playing handball and invited them to play football during halftime. A journalist from ''Femina'' went to cover the match, and not long after, the magazine was in a general meeting with those women establishing an association for women's football. A year later, ''Femina'' stopped providing financial support to the association. The women created their own union, ''Dansk Kvindelig Fodbold Union'' (the Danish Women's Football Union, or DKFU). DKFU was responsible for coordinating tournaments and establishing the rules, until the association was included in the DBU.
The Danish women's
team handball
Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...
league,
Damehåndboldligaen
The Danish Women's Handball League ( da, Damehåndboldligaen) is the top professional league for Danish women's handball clubs. It is administered by the Danish Handball Federation, and the winners are recognized as Danish champions. The league i ...
, is all-pro and internationally considered the strongest and most well paid in the world. Leading clubs are
GOG,
Slagelse
Slagelse () is a town on Zealand, Denmark. The town is the seat of Slagelse Municipality, and is the biggest town of the municipality. It is located 15 km east of Korsør, 16 km north-east of Skælskør, 33 km south-east of Kalundborg and 14 km ...
,
Aalborg DH and
Viborg HK
Viborg HK (Viborg Håndbold Klub) is the name of a Danish handball club from Viborg. The club has many teams for both women and men, but especially the professional women's team is one of the most successful in Danish and European handball si ...
.
The Danish women's football league,
Elitedivisionen
The Danish Women's League ( da, Danmarksturneringens Kvindeliga, Kvinde-DM Liga or Kvindeligaen) is a semi-professional top-flight league for women's football in Denmark. It is organised by the Danish Football Association (DBU) as part of the ...
is semi-professional. Leading clubs are
Fortuna Hjorring and HEI.
Retired Danish professional tennis player
Caroline Wozniacki
Caroline Wozniacki (; born 11 July 1990) is a Danish former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 in singles for a total of 71 weeks, including at the end of 2010 and 2011. She achieved the top ranking for the first time on 11 ...
was the number one female singles' tennis player in the world for 71 weeks (9th all-time) and won the
2018 Australian Open.
England
Association Football
In England, the top competition of
women's football, the
FA Women's Super League
The Women's Super League (WSL), currently known as the Barclays Women's Super League (BWSL) for sponsorship reasons, is the highest league of women's football in England. Established in 2010, it is run by the Football Association and features t ...
, is professional, as of the 2018-19 season. The major women's clubs competing are affiliates of male club counterparts, usually bearing the same names with the acronyms LFC or WFC, but they do not share the same large stadiums, instead renting smaller stadiums from lower-level clubs (no women's club actually owns their stadium). The competition is semi-professional, meaning that the players are paid above the old maximum for professionals but rely on part-time jobs or schooling outside the game. Full professionalism has been tried, mostly on the part of individual teams (
Fulham L.F.C. was the first side to go full pro, but was downgraded later by the owners), but it will take years to develop a fully professionalized women's league in England. Backing by a male club does not necessarily equal success, and the level of success achieved by male clubs may be reversed in female counterparts (compare these local derbies:
Aston Villa vs. Birmingham City;
Bristol City vs. Bristol Rovers;
Liverpool vs. Everton; and
Sunderland vs. Newcastle United).
Others
Similar semi-professionalism examples exist in women's
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
and
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
. Common to most
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
sports,
promotion and relegation
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...
is used in the leagues (a model not used by either the WNBA or NWSL). The
Ladies European Tour
The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1978. It is based at Buckinghamshire Golf Club near London in England. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal stru ...
is Europe's leading women's professional golf tour and formed as the WPGA in 1978. Over the last 33 years, the tour has developed into a truly international organization, and in 2011 operated 28 golf tournaments in 19 different countries worldwide.
England has hosted
Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* ...
, one of four annual major tennis tournaments, since 1884. Notably successful female English tennis players include:
Dorothea Lambert Chambers
Dorothea Lambert Chambers (née Dorothea Katherine Douglass, 3 September 1878 – 7 January 1960) was a British tennis player. She won seven The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon women's singles titles and a gold medal at the Tennis at the 190 ...
,
Blanche Bingley Hillyard,
Lottie Dod
Charlotte Dod (24 September 1871 – 27 June 1960) was an English multi-sport athlete, best known as a tennis player. She won the Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Championship five times, the first one when she was only 15 in the summer of 1887. She ...
,
Charlotte Cooper Sterry
Charlotte "Chattie" Cooper Sterry (née Charlotte Reinagle Cooper; 22 September 1870 – 10 October 1966) was an English female tennis player who won five singles titles at the Wimbledon Championships and in 1900 became Olympic champion. In winn ...
,
Phoebe Holcroft Watson
Phoebe Catherine Holcroft Watson ( Holcroft; 7 October 1898 – 20 October 1980) was a tennis player from the United Kingdom whose best result in singles was reaching the final of the U.S. Championships in 1929, losing to Helen Wills in straigh ...
,
Ann Haydon-Jones
Ann Shirley Jones, (née Adrianne Haydon on 17 October 1938, also known as Ann Haydon-Jones) is a British former table tennis and lawn tennis champion. She won eight Grand Slam tennis championships in her career: three in singles, three in wome ...
, and
Virginia Wade
Sarah Virginia Wade (born 10 July 1945) is a British former professional tennis player. She won three Major tennis singles championships and four major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all ...
. The most notably successful active English female tennis player is
Emma Raducanu
Emma Raducanu (born 13 November 2002) is a British professional tennis player. She reached a career-high ranking of No. 10 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on 11 July 2022, and is the current British No. 1. Raducanu is the first British ...
.
France
France has hosted the
French Open
The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ven ...
, one of four annual major tennis tournaments, since 1897.
Notably successful female French tennis players include:
Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen (; 24 May 1899 – 4 July 1938) was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World ...
,
Simonne Mathieu,
Françoise Dürr
Françoise Dürr (born 25 December 1942; sometimes referred to by English writers as Frankie Durr) is a retired French tennis player. She won 50 singles titles and over 60 doubles titles.
According to Lance Tingay, Bud Collins, and the Women' ...
,
Gail Chanfreau
Gail Chanfreau (née Sherriff; born 3 April 1945), also known as Gail Lovera and Gail Benedetti, is a French former amateur and professional tennis player.
Tennis career
Chanfreau was born in Australia, but moved to France in 1968. Chanfreau ...
,
Mary Pierce
Mary Caroline Pierce (born 15 January 1975) is a retired tennis professional who represented France internationally in team competitions and the Olympics. She was born in Canada to an American father and a French mother, and holds citizenship of ...
,
Amélie Mauresmo
Amélie Simone Mauresmo (; born 5 July 1979) is a French former List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 tennis player and tournament director. Mauresmo won two Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major singles titles at the ...
,
Marion Bartoli
Marion Bartoli (; born 2 October 1984) is a French former professional tennis player. Bartoli won the 2013 Wimbledon Championships singles title after previously being runner-up in 2007, and was a semifinalist at the 2011 French Open. She als ...
, and
Kristina Mladenovic
Kristina "Kiki" Mladenovic (; sr, Кристина "Кики" Младеновић, Kristina "Kiki" Mladenović, ; born 14 May 1993) is a French professional tennis player and a former world No. 1 in doubles.
She is a nine-time Grand Slam ch ...
.
Notably successful active female French tennis players include:
Caroline Garcia
Caroline Garcia (, born 16 October 1993) is a French professional tennis player. She has been ranked in the top 5 in both singles at world No. 4 and in doubles at world No. 2. Garcia is the 2022 WTA Finals singles champion.
She is also a two-ti ...
and
Kristina Mladenovic
Kristina "Kiki" Mladenovic (; sr, Кристина "Кики" Младеновић, Kristina "Kiki" Mladenović, ; born 14 May 1993) is a French professional tennis player and a former world No. 1 in doubles.
She is a nine-time Grand Slam ch ...
.
Eastern Europe
Tennis
Belarus
Notably successful Belarusian female tennis players include:
Natasha Zvereva
Natallia Marataŭna Zvierava ( be, Наталля Маратаўна Зверава; russian: Наталья Маратовна Зверева, Natalia Maratovna Zvereva; born 16 April 1971) is a former professional tennis player from Belarus. ...
(represented the Soviet Union, and later Belarus),
Victoria Azarenka
Victória Fyódarauna Azárenka ( be, Вікторыя Фёдараўна Азаранка; Russian: Виктория Фёдоровна Азаренко; born 31 July 1989) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. Azarenka is a former wo ...
, and
Aryna Sabalenka
Aryna Siarhiejeŭna Sabalenka ( be, Арына Сяргееўна Сабаленка; russian: Арина Сергеевна Соболенко, ''Arina Sergeyevna Sobolenko'', born 5 May 1998) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She ha ...
. Azarenka and Sabalenka are still active.
Croatia
Notably successful Croatian female tennis players include:
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni and
Iva Majoli
Iva Majoli-Marić (born 12 August 1977) is a former professional tennis player from Croatia who played for both Yugoslavia and Croatia. She upset Martina Hingis to win the women's singles title at the French Open in 1997. Majoli also won seven o ...
.
Czech Republic
Notably successful Czech female tennis players include:
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...
(represented Czechoslovakia for first win, subsequently represented the United States after being stripped of citizenship),
Helena Sukova (represented Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic),
Jana Novotná
Jana Novotná (; 2 October 1968 – 19 November 2017) was a Czech professional tennis player. She played a serve and volley game, an increasingly rare style of play among women during her career. Novotná won the women's singles title at Wimbled ...
(represented Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic),
Hana Mandlíková
Hana Mandlíková (born 19 February 1962) is a former professional tennis player from Czechoslovakia who later obtained Australian citizenship. During her career she won four Grand Slam singles titles - the 1980 Australian Open, 1981 French Op ...
(Czech-born, represented Czechoslovakia and later Australia),
Andrea Hlaváčková
Andrea is a given name which is common worldwide for both males and females, cognate to Andreas, Andrej and Andrew.
Origin of the name
The name derives from the Greek word ἀνήρ (''anēr''), genitive ἀνδρός (''andrós''), that ref ...
(represented Czech Republic),
Lucie Hradecká
Lucie Hradecká (; born 21 May 1985) is a Czech former professional tennis player. A three-time Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam doubles champion and 26-time WTA Tour doubles titlist, she reached her career-high doubles ranking of world No. 4 in ...
(represented Czech Republic),
Lucie Safarova (represented Czech Republic), and
Petra Kvitová
Petra Kvitová, OLY ( , ; born 8 March 1990) is a Czech professional tennis player. Known for her powerful left-handed groundstrokes and variety, Kvitová has won 29 career singles titles, including two major titles at Wimbledon in 2011 and i ...
(represented Czech Republic).
Notably successful active Czech female tennis players include:
Barbora Strycova,
Barbora Krejčíková
Barbora Krejčíková (; born 18 December 1995) is a Czech professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 2, achieved on 28 February 2022, and on 22 October 2018, she became List of WTA number 1 ranked doubles ten ...
,
Katerina Siniakova
Katerina (Greek: Κατερίνα, ''Katerína''; Russian, Bulgarian and Macedonian: Катерина, ''Katerina'') is a feminine given name. It is a Greek variant of '' Ekaterini'' and a Russian and Bulgarian short form of ''Ekaterina'' or ' ...
,
Petra Kvitová
Petra Kvitová, OLY ( , ; born 8 March 1990) is a Czech professional tennis player. Known for her powerful left-handed groundstrokes and variety, Kvitová has won 29 career singles titles, including two major titles at Wimbledon in 2011 and i ...
, and
Karolina Pliskova
Karolina may refer to:
People
*Karolina (name) Karolina, Karolína or Karolīna is a feminine given name. Karolina is a Croatian language, Croatian, Danish language, Danish, Faroese language, Faroese, Finnish language, Finnish, German language, Ge ...
.
Hungary
Notably successful Hungarian female tennis players include:
Zsuzsa Körmöczy
Zsuzsa Körmöczy (25 August 1924 – 16 September 2006) was a female tennis player from Hungary. She reached a career high of World No. 2 in women's tennis, and won the 1958 French Open at the age of 34.
Early life
She was born in Pély, Hunga ...
(represented Hungary),
Andrea Temesvári
Andrea Temesvári (born 26 April 1966) is a former professional tennis player from Hungary. She won the Italian Open at age sixteen, but injuries would later hamper her career.
Born in Budapest, Temesvári began playing tennis at age nine. Sh ...
(represented Hungary), and
Monica Seles
Monica Seles (; hu, Széles Mónika, ; sr, Моника Селеш, Monika Seleš; born December 2, 1973) is a retired professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. A former world No. 1, she won nine Grand Slam ...
(ethnically Hungarian, represented Yugoslavia and later the United States).
Latvia
Notably successful Latvian female tennis players include:
Larisa Savchenko-Neiland
Larisa Savchenko-Neiland ( uk, Лариса Савченко-Нейланд, lv, Larisa Savčenko-Neilande; née Savchenko; also Larisa Neiland; born 21 July 1966) is a retired tennis player who represented the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Latvia. ...
(represented the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Latvia) and
Jelena Ostapenko. Ostapenko is still active.
Poland
Notably successful Polish female tennis players include the retired
Jadwiga Jędrzejowska
Jadwiga "Jed" Jędrzejowska (; 15 October 1912 – 28 February 1980) was a Polish tennis player who had her main achievements during the second half of the 1930s. Because her name was difficult to pronounce for many people who did not speak Polis ...
and
Agnieszka Radwańska
Agnieszka Roma Radwańska (; born 6 March 1989) is a Polish former professional tennis player. She won 20 career singles WTA Tour titles, two doubles titles, and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 2 on 9 July 2012. Her achievem ...
as well as the currently active
Iga Świątek
Iga Natalia Świątek (; born 31 May 2001) is a Polish professional tennis player. She is currently ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Świątek is a three-time major singles champion, having won the French Open in 202 ...
.
Romania
Notably successful Romanian female tennis players include:
Virginia Ruzici
Virginia Ruzici (born 31 January 1955) is a former professional tennis player from Romania. She won the 1978 French Open singles championship.
Career
Ruzici became a professional tennis player in 1975. One of her main assets on court was her po ...
and
Simona Halep
Simona Halep (; born 27 September 1991) is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019, for a total of 64 weeks, which ranks eleventh in the history of the Women's Tennis Assoc ...
. Halep is still active.
Russia
Notably successful Russian female tennis players include:
Anna Kournikova
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova ( rus, Анна Сергеевна Курникова, p=ˈanːə sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvnə ˈkurnʲɪkəvə, a=Anna_kournikova.ogg; born 7 June 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player and American televisio ...
,
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Svetlana Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova (born 27 June 1985) is a Russian inactive professional tennis player. She is a two-time major singles champion, winning the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open, and finishing runner-up at two other majors. I ...
,
Vera Zvonareva
Vera Igorevna Zvonareva ( rus, Вера Игоревна Звонарёва, p=ˈvʲɛrə ˈiɡərʲɪvnə zvənɐˈrʲɵvə, a=Vera zvonareva.ogg; born 7 September 1984) is a Russian professional tennis player. She was introduced to tennis at ...
,
Elena Vesnina
Elena Sergeyevna Vesnina (born 1 August 1986) is a Russian former professional tennis player and a former world No. 1 in doubles.
She is a four-time Grand Slam champion, having won the 2013 French Open, 2014 US Open, and 2017 Wimbledon Cha ...
,
Ekaterina Makarova
Ekaterina Valeryevna Makarova ( rus, Екатери́на Вале́рьевна Мака́рова; ; born 7 June 1988) is a Russian former professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 in doubles, and world No. 8 in singles.
She ...
,
Yaroslava Shvedova
Yaroslava Vyacheslavovna Shvedova (; born 12 September 1987) is a Kazakhstani former professional tennis player. Before 2008, she represented her country of birth, Russia.
She won one singles title and 13 doubles titles on the WTA Tour, plus o ...
(represented Kazakhstan, not Russia), and
Maria Sharapova
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova ( , ; rus, Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова, p=mɐˈrʲijə ʂɐˈrapəvə, a=Maria_sharapova.ogg; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 ...
.
Serbia
Notably successful Serbian female tennis players include:
Ana Ivanovic
Ana Schweinsteiger ( sr, Ана Швајнштајгер / ''Ana Švajnštajger''; born 6 November 1987), professionally known by her birth name Ana Ivanovic (Ана Ивановић / ''Ana Ivanović'', ), is a Serbian former world No. 1 tenn ...
and
Jelena Jankovic Jelena, also written Yelena and Elena, is a Slavic given name. It is a Slavicized form of the Greek name Helen, which is of uncertain origin. Diminutives of the name include Jelica, Jelka, Jele, Jela, Lena, Lenotschka, Jeca, Lenka, and Alena.
No ...
.
Slovenia
Notably successful Slovenian female tennis players include:
Mima Jaušovec
Mima Jaušovec (; born 20 July 1956) is a retired Yugoslavian tennis player. She won the 1977 French Open singles championship.
Early life
Jaušovec was born in Maribor, in present-day Slovenia, when it was part of Yugoslavia.
Career
As a gir ...
(represented Yugoslavia) and
Katarina Srebotnik
Katarina Srebotnik (born 12 March 1981) is a Slovenian retired professional tennis player. She reached her career-high singles ranking of world No. 20 on 7 August 2006. On 4 July 2011, she reached No. 1 of the WTA doubles rankings, holding this ...
.
Ukraine
Notably successful Ukrainian female tennis players include:
Alona Bondarenko
Alona Volodymyrivna Bondarenko Dyachok ( uk, Альона Володимирівна Бондаренко; born 13 August 1984) is a Ukrainian former tennis player. Her younger sister Kateryna Bondarenko plays on the WTA Tour.
Her career-high s ...
and
Kateryna Bondarenko
Kateryna Volodymyrivna Volodko (née Bondarenko; uk, Катерина Володимирівна Бондаренко; born 8 August 1986) is a tennis player from Ukraine. She was the doubles champion in 2008 at the Australian Open, partnering ...
.
Latin America
Association football
Women's football in Latin America is overseen by two organizations. South America is mostly overseen by the South American Football Association, or
CONMEBOL
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL, , or CSF; es, Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol; pt, Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol) is the continental governing body of football in South America (apart from Guyana, Suri ...
, while Mexico, Central America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean are overseen by
CONCACAF
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typese ...
. Both organizations have categories for male and female players. CONMEBOL also organizes the
Copa Libertadores Femenina
The CONMEBOL Libertadores Femenina, named as "Copa Libertadores Femenina" ( pt, Copa Libertadores Feminina or Taça Libertadores Feminina) is an annual international women's association football club competition in South America. It is organized by ...
competition for club teams, while CONCACAF currently has no women's club competition. The men's
Copa Libertadores
The CONMEBOL Libertadores, also known as the Copa Libertadores de América ( pt, Copa Libertadores da América), is an annual international club football competition organized by CONMEBOL since 1960. It is the highest level of competition in S ...
was founded in 1959, and the women's competition in 2009. The 2018 competition was hosted by Brazil, and included teams from all 10 CONMEBOL members (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela). The Colombian team
Atlético Huila
Atlético Huila is a professional Colombian football team based in Neiva, that currently plays in the Categoría Primera B. The club was founded on November 29, 1990, making it one of the youngest professional football clubs in Colombia. The club' ...
won the championship game 5-3 in a penalty shootout against the Brazilian team
Santos. CONMEBOL now requires that all clubs that enter the men's Copa Libertadores field competitive women's sides, a policy that took effect with the 2019 men's edition.
The only Latin American countries that have had women's tournaments for more than 20 years are Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Ecuador, Chile, Mexico and Colombia are relatively new to implementing professional women's football leagues, and it is still growing in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, who have had small semiprofessional championships.
Basketball
Professional women's basketball is slowly gaining more attention in South America. Many Latin American countries have professional women's leagues, but the only country to obtain success internationally is Brazil. The
FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup
The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, also known as the Basketball World Cup for Women or simply the FIBA Women's World Cup, is an international basketball tournament for women's national teams held quadrennially. It was created by the Internat ...
is a world basketball tournament held every four years for women's basketball national teams. Since the tournament's creation in 1953, Brazil is the only South American team that has won a title. This championship was part of a golden era for women's basketball in Brazil in the 1990s and early 2000s, led by
Hortencia Marcari and
Maria Paula Gonçalves da Silva. In this era, Brazil also won silver and bronze, respectively, in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.
In the 2018 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, Argentina and Puerto Rico were the only two Latin American teams to qualify. However, they placed last among the participating teams.
Rugby
Rugby in Latin America has grown exponentially ever since
Rugby Sevens was added to the Olympics in 2016. The prominent tournament for women's rugby in Latin America is
CONSUR Women's 7's. This tournament began in 2004 hosted by Venezuela, and is now a qualifier for several international tournaments such as the
Pan American Games
The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is held ...
and the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
.
In the
2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco, the only two Latin American women's teams that qualified were Brazil and Mexico. Both teams lost in the Round of 16.
Tennis
There have been several successful Latin American professional women's tennis players.
Anita Lizana
Anita Lizana de Ellis (19 November 1915 – 21 August 1994) was a world No. 1 tennis player from Chile. She was the first Latin American, and first Hispanic person, to be ranked World Number 1 tennis player. Also, Lizana was the first Latin Am ...
of Chile was the first Latin American to be ranked No. 1 in the world in women's singles, as well as the first Latin American, male or female, to win a Grand Slam title.
Brazilian player
Maria Bueno
Maria Esther Andion Bueno (11 October 1939 – 8 June 2018) was a Brazilian professional tennis player. During her 11-year career in the 1950s and 1960s, she won 19 Grand Slam titles (seven in women's singles, 11 in women's doubles, and one in ...
saw success in singles and doubles play in the 1950s and 1960s, winning 19 Grand Slam titles across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles.
Mexican doubles pair
Rosie Reyes Darmon and
Yola Ramírez Ochoa won the 1958 French Open.
Fiorella Bonicelli
Fiorella Bonicelli (born 21 December 1951) is a retired professional tennis player from Uruguay. She was born in Lima, Peru but grew up in Montevideo, Uruguay where she started playing tennis when at age 11. During her career, she won the 197 ...
of Uruguay, a doubles player, won the
1976 French Open
The 1976 French Open was a tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor clay courts at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. The tournament ran from 31 May until 14 June. It was the 80th staging of the French Open, and the second Grand Sla ...
with her French partner.
Gabriela Sabatini
Gabriela Beatriz Sabatini (; born 16 May 1970) is an Argentine-Italian former professional tennis player. A former world No. 3 in both singles and doubles, Sabatini was one of the leading players from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, amassing 41 ...
of Argentina has won a Grand Slam title as well as 27 singles championships and 14 doubles championships. She is also a 3-time semi-finalist in the Australian Open, 5-time in Wimbledon and 3-time in the U.S. Open. Argentinian doubles player
Paola Suárez
Paola Suárez (; born 23 June 1976) is a retired tennis player from Argentina. She was one of the most prominent women's doubles players throughout the early and mid-2000s, winning eight Grand Slam titles, all of them with Virginia Ruano Pascual ...
won 8 Grand Slam doubles titles in the 2000s. Fellow Argentinian doubles player
Gisela Dulko
Gisela Dulko (; born 30 January 1985) is a retired Argentine tennis player. Although she enjoyed modest success in singles, reaching a career-high ranking of world No. 26 and winning four WTA titles, her speciality was doubles, where she achiev ...
won the
2011 Australian Open.
Currently, Spanish-Venezuelan singles player
Garbiñe Muguruza
Garbiñe Muguruza Blanco (; born 8 October 1993) is a Spanish-Venezuelan professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. ...
represents Spain; she has won the singles titles at the
2016 French Open and
2017 Wimbledon
The 2017 Wimbledon Championships was a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The main draw matches commenced on 3 July 2017 and concluded on 16 July 20 ...
and was world number one for four weeks.
Volleyball
Volleyball is one of the most popular sports for women in Latin America, particularly in Peru. The Peruvian Women's National Team was very successful in the 1980s, winning a silver medal at the 1988 Olympics in South Korea. The team was led by
Natalia Málaga
Natalia María Málaga Dibos (born 26 January 1964) is a volleyball player and coach from Peru. She participated in four Summer Olympics with the Peru women's national volleyball team. She placed sixth in 1980, fourth in 1984, won a silver medal ...
,
Gabriela Pérez del Solar
Gabriela "Gaby" Lourdes Pérez del Solar Cuculiza (born July 10, 1968) is a retired Peruvian volleyball player and a politician and former Congresswoman of the Christian People's Party.
Sports career
Perez del Solar began to play volleyball ...
, and especially
Cecilia Tait
Cecilia Roxana Tait Villacorta (born May 2, 1962) is a Peruvian politician and retired volleyball player. Nicknamed ''La Zurda del Oro'' (''The Golden Left-Handed Woman''), she participated in three Summer Olympics with the Peru national team, ...
, who is considered one of the greatest athletes in Peru's history. The top volleyball competition in Peru is ''Liga Nacional Superior de Vóleibol'' (LNSV). It features twelve women's teams and nine men's teams. Winners of the competition qualify for the
South American Volleyball Club Championship South American Volleyball Club Championship may refer to
* Men's South American Volleyball Club Championship
* Women's South American Volleyball Club Championship
The South American Women's Volleyball Club Championship is an international women's ...
. Today, however, many other Latin American countries have had more international success in the sport.
At the 2018 Women's World Championship in Japan, several Latin American teams competed, including Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, The Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. None of these teams made it past the second round.
Many Latin American countries are currently very competitive internationally in women's volleyball. Brazil is ranked #4 in the world, with the Dominican Republic at #10, Argentina at #11, Puerto Rico at #13, Mexico at #21, Cuba at #25, and Peru at #27.
Motorsports
Five women competed in
Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
:
Maria Teresa de Filippis
Maria Teresa de Filippis (11 November 1926 – 8 January 2016) was an Italian racing driver, and the first woman to race in Formula One. She participated in five World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18 May 1958, but scored no championship ...
(1958-1959),
Lella Lombardi
Maria Grazia "Lella" Lombardi (26 March 1941 – 3 March 1992) was an Italian racing driver who participated in 17 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix. Lombardi is one of two female drivers to qualify for Formula One and is the only femal ...
(1974-1976),
Divina Galica
Divina Mary Galica MBE (last name pronounced "Galitsa") (born 13 August 1944) is a British sportswoman. She competed in four Winter Olympics as a skier, captaining the British Women's Olympic Ski Team in 1968 and 1972. She also pursued a car ...
(1976 and 1978),
Desiré Wilson
Desiré Randall Wilson (born 26 November 1953) is a former racing driver from South Africa and one of only five women to have competed in Formula One. Born in Brakpan, she entered one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix in 1980 with a non ...
(1980) and
Giovanna Amati (1992), totaling 29 entries and 15 starts. Lombardi had a best result of sixth at the
1975 Spanish Grand Prix
The 1975 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Montjuïc circuit on 27 April 1975. It was race 4 of 14 in both the 1975 World Championship of Drivers and the 1975 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. It is one of t ...
, where she was awarded half a World Championship point.
The
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM, German Touring Car Masters) is a grand touring car series sanctioned by ITR e.V. who have been affiliated to the DMSB-FIA since 1984. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe. The ser ...
has had four women drivers:
Katherine Legge
Katherine Anne Legge ( ; born 12 July 1980) is a British professional auto racing driver, competing in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. She is also featured in ''Richard Hammond's Crash Course''.
Racing career
Early racing and Atlantics ...
,
Susie Stoddart
Susie is a female name that can be a diminutive form of Susan, Susanne, Suzanne, Susannah, Susanna or Susana.
Susie may refer to:
Songs
* "Susie Q" (song), a 1957 song by Dale Hawkins, covered by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968)
*" Wake ...
,
Rahel Frey and
Vanina Ickx
''Vanina'' (German:''Vanina oder Die Galgenhochzeit'') is a 1922 German silent historical film directed by Arthur von Gerlach and starring Asta Nielsen, Paul Wegener and Paul Hartmann.Rentschler
The art direction was by Walter Reimann. It wa ...
. Stoddart scored two 7th race finishes and a 13th place in the standings in 2010. In the
Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) was a touring car racing series held from 1984 to 1996. Originally based in Germany, it held additional rounds elsewhere in Europe and later worldwide.
The original DTM had resumed racing with producti ...
,
Ellen Lohr
Ellen Lohr (born 12 April 1965 in Mönchengladbach) is a German race car driver. She currently competes in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series, driving the No. 99 Chevrolet Camaro for Dexwet-df1 Racing in the Elite 1 class.
She is one of Germany's mo ...
scored a win.
In sports car racing, Desiré Wilson also won two races of the
World Sportscar Championship
The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992.
The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance, and road racing events in Europe and No ...
, and Odette Siko resulted fourth overall at the 1932
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...
.
In rallying,
Michèle Mouton
Michèle Mouton (born 23 June 1951) is a French former rally driver. Competing in the World Rally Championship for the Audi factory team, she took four victories and finished runner-up in the drivers' world championship in 1982.
Mouton debuted ...
got four wins and nine podiums at the
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
, resulting runner-up in 1982. Meanwhile,
Jutta Kleinschmidt
Jutta Kleinschmidt (born 29 August 1962) is a German competitor of offroad automotive racing events. She is known for her numerous showings in the Paris Dakar Rally, and notably for having won the event in 2001, becoming the only woman driver to ...
won the
2001 Dakar Rally.
In off-road motorcycling,
Laia Sanz
Laia Sanz Pla-Giribert (born 11 December 1985), also known as Laia Sanz, is a Spanish sportswoman. She is a fourteen-time Women's Trial World Champion and ten-time Women's Trial European Champion in outdoor motorcycle trials.
She has also a m ...
scored twelve women's trial world championships and three
X Games
The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...
endurocross gold medals.
In 2019 the
W Series an all female racing championship in which the drivers can progress to
Formula 1
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
,
Formula 2
Formula Two (F2 or Formula 2) is a type of open-wheel formula racing category first codified in 1948. It was replaced in 1985 by Formula 3000, but revived by the FIA from 2009–2012 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The name return ...
&
Formula 3
Formula Three, also called Formula 3, abbreviated as F3, is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One driv ...
as a full time or replacement driver. The series is free to enter but you must be picked by the series as one of the 18 best female drivers in the world. The series has 10 races at 8 tracks that do Formula 1 races. Races are 30 minutes long and 1 extra lap after the time limit expires. Follows typical Formula 1 rules.
Top earning sportswomen
For several years, ''Forbes'' magazine has published a list of the top 10 earning female athletes, supplementing a similar list of the top 100 earners among athletes regardless of sex or gender. The 2021 list was the first to be based on earnings during the named calendar year; previous lists were based on a fiscal year that ended on June 30 of the year of publication.
Forbes list
2021
Forbes list
2020
Gender inequality across sports
Gender coaching gaps
Globally, coaching positions across all sports face a gender gap. Men hold more coaching positions than women, regardless of the gender of the sport, although the gender of the team's head coach has been shown not to impact team or individual player performance.
In American college basketball for women, women make up 43.4% of coaching positions at the
NCAA Division I
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...
level as of 2018.
At the NCAA Division I level for men, women do not hold any coaching positions.
Through 2018 in the
WNBA, men held 29 head coach positions and women held 27.
In the
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
, a woman has never held a head coach position,
and only 11 women held full-time assistant positions in the . In other countries, gender representation statistics in coaching are similar or even more male-dominated. For example, in Norway, women made up 14% of elite level coaching positions in 2018.
These representation gaps reflect traditional societal gender stereotypes. One explanation for this is the stereotypical association of sports with masculinity: in coaching, traditionally expected masculine attributes such as dominance, aggressiveness, and independence are considered to be more desirable in head coaches when compared with traditionally expected feminine attributes such as affection, sympathy, and timidity.
As of 2018, outside of basketball, fewer than 5 percent of men's teams are coached by women, and they are primarily at smaller universities.
Gender wage gap
Coaches
Salaries are consistent between female and male coaches within individual sports programs. The coaching wage gap exists when comparing female sports programs with male programs. Coaches for women's programs are paid less than coaches for men's programs. This has frequently been rationalized by the fact that women's programs are not as financially successful, do not generate similar media coverage, and do not draw similar crowds as their male counterparts.
In 2010 NCAA Division I basketball, the median salary for the head coach position in women's programs was $171,600 and the median salary for the head coach position for men was $329,000.
In 2018, the median salary for women's programs was increased to $690,000 and for men's programs to $2.7 million.
The gap between men's and women's NCAA Division I programs was particularly significant among the highest paid coaches. As of 2018,
Mike Krzyzewski
Michael William Krzyzewski ( ; born February 13, 1947), nicknamed "Coach K", is an American former college basketball coach. He served as the head coach at Duke University from 1980 to 2022, during which he led the Blue Devils to five natio ...
at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
was the highest earning coach for men's basketball. He earned $9.0 million and had won 5 national championships at that point.
The highest-paid female coach in 2018 was
Kim Mulkey
Kimberly Duane Mulkey (born May 17, 1962) is an American college basketball player and coach. She is the head coach for Louisiana State University's women's basketball team. A Pan-American gold medalist in 1983 and Olympic gold medalist in 1984, ...
of
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the fir ...
at $1.85 million, who had won two national titles at that point; she would win a third
the following season. At the same time, the highest-paid coach of a women's team was
Geno Auriemma
Luigi "Geno" Auriemma (born March 23, 1954) is an Italian-born American college basketball coach and, since 1985, the head coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team. , he has led UConn to 17 undefeated conference sea ...
of the
University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...
, who had won 11 national championships, a record for any D-I basketball coach. He earned $2.4 million at the time. This overall pay disparity among men's and women's athletic programs exists across every sport and varies based on revenue and media coverage.
Coverage
It was not until the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
and the passing of
Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
in 1972 that women were given the respect they deserved. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. Although there has been great advancement of women's sports and female athletes, the potential for strong women to be positive role models and the portrayal of these athletes in the media has been subjected to objectification and invisibility compared to male athletes and male sports. Women's sports are, on average, underrepresented in comparison to male sports. Exclusion and dismissal of female athletes are common themes that are found during research of media representation. Sports media tends to represent women athletes as women first and athletes second. The media’s lack of coverage for women’s sports clearly reflects society’s view of women, in that they are less than their male counterparts, and that the cultural norm of society is that men are considered the strong, athletic ones who dominate the sports world.
One percent of network television coverage included women's athletics in 2014, and ESPN's SportsCenter featured women two percent of the time. Even when female sports are televised or receive media attention, the athletes are often objectified or their personal lives are brought into question. Coverage of women in sports is often dominated by references to appearance, age, or family life, whereas men are depicted as powerful, independent, dominating, and valued as athletes.
Every day, men’s sports stories dominate the 10 most popular sports websites. Women’s sports in the U.S. receive only 4 percent of sports media coverage, according to the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sports at the University of Minnesota. In a study of televised sports news, ongoing since 1989, three LA-based stations dedicated, on average, 3.2 percent of their sports coverage to women’s sports, according to the 2014 results.
Sports coverage is powerful in shaping norms and stereotypes about gender. Media has the ability to challenge these norms, promoting a balanced coverage of men’s and women’s sports and a fair portrayal of sportspeople – irrespective of gender.
On International Women's Day in 2020, CBC announced its commitment to provide gender equal coverage on its original content. Chris Wilson, the executive director of CBC Sports and Olympics, said, "And we're going to make sure that when you look across our entire CBC sports ecosystem over the course of a year, that we're covering as much women's sport as we're covering men."
Cheryl Cooky, an associate professor of American studies and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Purdue University says, “The interest for women’s sports is there. It’s just a problem of how leagues and teams are marketed. We don’t see the same amount of coverage. We don’t see the same investment in women’s sports.”
Record breaking growth has been documented in the early 2020s; with the National Women's Soccer League viewership having increased by 500%, the WNBA's by 68%, the 2021 Women’s College World Series best-of-three-game championship series had 1.84 million viewers which was more than a NHL playoff game the same day. Social media has further encouraged greater interest. Despite this as of 2019 95% of all sports TV coverage still focused on men's sports mainly but with stronger cultural biases limiting coverage is especially still noted in the NCAA & US soccer organizations.
Basketball
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has built its trademarked “March Madness” phrase into one of the most powerful brands in sports. It’s plastered on the courts, arenas and broadcasts for the lucrative NCAA men’s basketball tournament—and absent from the women’s tournament.
The 2021 NCAA Basketball Championships were an eye opener for many viewers. The issues relating to gender inequality came to light when Stanford performance coach, Ali Kershner, posted side-by-side photos of the difference in weight rooms constructed for the female and male athletes, which later went viral on Twitter. Oregon player
Sedona Prince
Sedona Prince (born May 12, 2000) is an American basketball player who currently plays for the TCU Horned Frogs of the Big 12 Conference. She previously played for the Oregon Ducks of the Pac-12 Conference and the Texas Longhorns of the Big 12 ...
also posted a TikTok video, exposing the disparities at the NCAA Women's Basketball Championships. Once brought to the attention of social media users, the issue was quickly handled by brands to ensure gender equality was met. To further express the gender inequality in the media at the tournament, the NCAA did not provide interview transcription services until the Women's Sweet 16, but provided these services for all post-game press conferences at the Men's Tournament. Although the NCAA was unable to tell news outlets how to cover the tournament, their website was male-dominated. A reader stated they "had to scroll past 26 stories or videos about the men’s basketball tournament before reaching the first story or video about the women’s tournament." On Twitter, the use of hashtags for the NCAA Tournament was far different for the women versus its male counterparts. The handle @MarchMadness, along with #MarchMadness is used specifically for the men's tournament only, while women's basketball content is found using @NCAAwbb and gendered hashtags including #ncaaW and #WFinalFour. Although the trademarked "March Madness" is allowed to be used for both men and women's basketball, the NCAA used it only for the men's tournament until 2022.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a large increase in coverage for the National Women's Basketball Association (WNBA). There were nearly 90 nationally televised games, and viewership numbers were up, with a 68 per cent increase in regular season average viewership across all networks.
The big increase in viewership was due in part to ESPN Network and CBS Television Network. The exposure to women's basketball was a step in the right direction, and social media interactions continue to grow, as there was a 30 per cent increase in cross-platform average action for social posts. In replacement of in-person viewership, the WNBA formed a "Tap to Cheer" application which resulted in an 85 per cent increase in average weekly mobile application downloads, totaling 109 million taps.
Ice Hockey
The National Women's Hockey League, since renamed the Premier Hockey Federation, saw history being made in the 2020-2021 season as both of the two Isobel Cup semifinals on March 26 and the final on March 27 were broadcast on NBCSN during the Saturday night prime time for Americans and streamed on Twitch for international viewers. For the first time in the sport’s history, every professional women’s hockey game in North America that year had either been broadcast on live television or had a sponsored, high-quality stream. In addition to the Twitch and NBCSN feeds for the NWHL, February 2021 saw Sportsnet, NBC, and CBC showing at least one of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association’s four games that season.
Although exciting for the women's hockey game, it is hard to forget that only two years ago, the NWHL and PWHPA struggled to secure consistent airtime, and if they did, it was of poor quality and was not advertised appropriately.
Before this season, the Olympics was the only way fans were able to watch women's hockey when not in person. The 2018 Olympic gold medal game between Canada and the United States drew 3.7 million viewers to NBCSN and NBC streaming platforms.
Some other championships and events, such as the 2020 Elite Women's 3-on-3 game at the NHL All-Star game, were aired on CBC and Sportsnet, and the Women's World Championships was broadcast on TSN for Canadian viewers. It was not until 2016 that these games were made available in the United States on the NHL Network.
It may seem like there were advancements made in the coverage of women’s hockey, but in 2019, it became apparent it was not that easy to watch women's hockey on your television. The Under-18 Women's World Championship in 2019 was moved to be in direct competition with the World Juniors for viewers and media attention. The Women's World Championship is the biggest international event in any non-Olympic year for women, so there was a lot of backlash faced after this decision. Not to mention, the broadcast set up for the 2019 Women's World Championship was a birds-eye view, similar to that of a doorbell camera, whereas the Men's World Junior Championship tournament was aired in its entirety on TSN, with expansive coverage, analysis, and multiple cameras. Many discussed the lack of forethought and care for how a simultaneously scheduled tournament performs in media attention.
Social media, and the help of the NHL player's association, have both been important factors in helping to promote women's hockey. In fact, recently, there was a one-minute video released in February 2021, titled "Stick In The Ground," that features U.S. and Canadian women's national team players, NHL players, tennis great Billie Jean King and even Toronto Mayor John Tory discussing the importance of planting a stick to benefit the future of women's hockey. Numerous NHL players participated in the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association's campaign, promoting the need to establish a new North American women's league. Various NHL teams have partnered with the PWHPA, including the Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues, and the New York Rangers. These partnerships have and will continue to help with the visibility of women's hockey.
Tennis
Women's tennis does get a lot of viewership. The 2018 US Open Women’s singles final had 1.04 million more viewers than the Men’s final. Women’s Grand Slams received 41 per cent less media attention than men, despite similar viewership. In the only Grand Slam where women received more attention than men, this was due to media focus on controversy (marred by accusations of sexism and racism), rather than ability.
During the 2018 U.S. Open Final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, Williams was defeated by Osaka 6-2 and 6-4, but her accomplishment was overshadowed in the media by violations handed to Williams by umpire Carlos Ramos. After two code violations, Serena Williams told Carlos Ramos she "doesn’t cheat to win", and claimed he was attacking her character. Williams called Ramos a "thief" and said he had stolen a point from her. After a lengthy exchange with Ramos, which brought Tournament Referee Brian Earley out to the court, a finger-pointing and visibly upset Williams was given a third code violation for verbal abuse, this one costing her a game. Rather than promoting the historical win of Osaka, the media chose to portray Williams as an aggressive, out-of-line individual. There was a cartoon which depicted an overly large and muscular Williams with exaggerated features jumping up and down. Beneath her are a broken racquet and a pacifier, suggesting the athlete engaged in an infantile tantrum on the court. The 2018 U.S. Open headlines and TV coverage were all regarding Serena Williams.
The audience for the women’s final on July 14, 2018, in which Angelique Kerber defeated Serena Williams, peaked at 4.6 million, while the peak figure for Novak Djokovic’s victory over Kevin Anderson the next day, which clashed with the football World Cup final, was 4.5 million. During three of the Grand Slams, coverage spikes were significantly larger for men than women. As an example, during the month of Wimbledon (July 2018), the men’s single’s tournament was covered in 32,200 articles compared to 20,180 for the women’s. During the Australian Open, the women’s tournament saw 13,900 pieces, some 15,000 fewer than the men’s (28,130). Likewise, across May and June, the women’s French Open was covered by 7,500 pieces and the men’s by 13,300.
There is interest in women's tennis, but it will be important to focus articles on female tennis players as athletes and their abilities, rather than discussing outside factors such as family life or their actions during a game.
Soccer
There has been massive growth in media coverage of women's soccer in recent years. From 2013-2016, the National Women's Soccer league was streamed via YouTube or on the individual team's websites for free, with the exception of the Boston Breakers, who charged a small fee. In 2013, the league signed a one-year deal with Fox Sports 2 to televise multiple games during the season, and then in 2014, they signed another one-year deal with ESPN to allow regular season and playoff games to be live streamed on ESPN 2 and ESPN 3. As of 2017, the NWSL announced a three-year deal with A&E Networks, broadcasting 22 regular-season games and 3 playoff matches, which marked the first time the NWSL had a weekly broadcast for the duration of the season. Presently, the NWSL has a three-year agreement with CBS Sports and the Twitch streaming service to broadcast 87 matches split between CBS, CBS Sports Network, and CBS All Access in Canada and the United States. NBC also agreed to broadcast the Olympic tournament through 2032.
The 2015 Women's World Cup Final between the United States and Japan was the most viewed soccer match, between both men's or women's soccer, in American broadcast history. It averaged 23 million viewers and higher ratings than the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup finals. The final was also the most watched US-Spanish language broadcast of a FIFA Women's World Cup match in history. Overall, there were over 750 million viewers for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, making it the most viewed Women's World Cup in history. The FIFA Women's World Cup is now the second-most watched FIFA tournament, with only the men's FIFA World Cup attracting more viewership. The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup generated record viewership (993 million people watched on TV, 482 million on digital platforms), and the final was more popular than the 2018 men’s final, with a 22% larger audience.
It was not until after the U.S. Women's Soccer Team won the World Cup series in 2015 that they decided to take a stand against gender inequality. “I realized that there’s not nearly enough media coverage for female athletes in relation to the amount of female athletes who participate in sports,” said U.S. Women's Soccer Team member, Alex Morgan. In March 2016, five members of the team joined in to file a wage-discrimination action against the U.S. Soccer Federation, and one year following the action, it was announced that a new collective bargaining agreement had been made. On March 8, 2019, all 28 members of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation for gender discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and on March 8, 2021, Congresswomen
Doris Matsui
Doris Okada Matsui (; born Doris Kazue Okada; September 25, 1944) is an American politician from the Democratic Party, serving since 2005 in the House of Representatives. She represents (until 2013 numbered the 5th district), covering the city ...
and
Rosa DeLauro
Rosa Luisa DeLauro (; born March 2, 1943) is an American politician who has been the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for since 1991. She is a member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. The dist ...
introduced the Give Our Athletes Level Salaries (GOALS) Act to ensure the U.S. Women's Soccer Team members "are paid fair and equitable wages compared to the U.S. Men's team."
To allow for more female-focused media coverage, U.S. Women's Soccer star, Alex Morgan, has recently launched her own media venture focusing on storytelling, specifically content for girls created by female athletes. “Men’s sports are always in the spotlight. We’ll be focusing on women in sports and sharing the stories that I think a lot of people want hear, and girls need to be given access to.” This venture will allow female athletes to use their platform to enhance the viewership of women's sports across the globe.
Social media
With the strong advancements in social media, society is able to learn and grow from like-minded individuals through their platforms. There is a lack of media exposure for female athletes and female sports, and when there is, women are underrepresented or portrayed as being more masculine and out of character. Due to the lack of exposure, female athletes are forced to engage with fans and various brands in order to provide them with sponsorship opportunities. Many female athletes must be employed outside of their sports because their pay is not high enough to cover expenses like that of their male counterparts. This has limited the growth of women's sports. Social media offers female athletes an opportunity to amplify their voices and grow their presence. Female athletes are now often social media influencers, and some try to become role models for the younger generations. Ramla Ali, a Somali born female boxer and Nike sponsored athlete, uses her platform to share her struggles in a male-dominated sport and is sparking inspiration amongst others.
Social media will become a big growth factor in women's sports as it continues to advance. Social media is changing the way sports stars, clubs, and fans are interacting with each other. From live-tweeting games, creating snarky memes, and cheerleading from the webosphere, spectators are no longer simply watching sports, and fans can often get news, insights and commentary straight from the source.
The voice as well as the face of sports is changing in response to social and digital media. Through the use of media, sporting clubs, teams, and organizations are able to release news and broadcast their own games, skipping over the use of traditional news media. If female athletes and women's sports organizations are able to market themselves, aside from needing a greater exposure on national television, they will be able to further use its social media platforms to their advantage.
Sex testing
Sex verification testing has been used to determine who is allowed to compete as a woman. This is because males have a biological advantage over females in some physical activities, such as running. Feminists and women's rights advocates have pushed for equality and better management within sports.
South African runner
Caster Semenya
Mokgadi Caster Semenya OIB (born 7 January 1991) is a South African middle-distance runner and winner of two Olympic gold medals and three World Championships in the women's 800 metres. She first won gold at the World Championships in 2009 ...
won the women's 800 meters race at the
2009 World Championships. Almost immediately after her win, the International Association of Athletics Federations, now known as
World Athletics
World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...
, ordered her to go through sex verification testing. This information was leaked to the press. The results were used to determine if Semenya was qualified to race as a woman, or if she had a "rare medical condition" that would give her an "unfair advantage".
The rules about hormone levels have changed several times, and most recently, WA has ordered that women with
disorders of sex development
Disorders of sex development (DSDs), also known as differences in sex development, diverse sex development and variations in sex characteristics (VSC), are congenital conditions affecting the reproductive system, in which development of chromoso ...
that result in natural
hyperandrogenism
Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition characterized by high levels of androgens. It is more common in women than men. Symptoms of hyperandrogenism may include acne, seborrhea (inflamed skin), hair loss on the scalp, increased body or facia ...
must take medication to reduce their testosterone levels to be eligible to compete.
As of June 2019, Semenya is involved in a lawsuit to contest these rules.
Women's professional sports competitions
*
Women's sports at the Olympics
Badminton
*
BWF World Senior Championships
The BWF World Senior Championships is a badminton tournament sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BWF). The winners will be crowned as the "World Senior Champions" and awarded gold medals. However, it does not offer any prize money. The tour ...
Cycling
*
UCI Women's Road World Cup
The UCI Women's Road Cycling World Cup was a season-long road bicycle competition for women organized by the Union Cycliste Internationale between 1998–2015. This competition consisted of a series (which has varied from 6 to 12 events) of rac ...
Football
International tournaments
*
Women's World Cup
*
AFC Women's Asian Cup
*
Algarve Cup
The Algarve Cup is an invitational tournament for national teams in women's association football hosted by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF). Held annually in the Algarve region of Portugal since 1994, it is one of the most prestigious and ...
*
SheBelieves Cup
The SheBelieves Cup is an invitational women's soccer tournament held in different cities in the United States in late February or early March. In its first three years (2016, 2017 and 2018), it was contested by the same four teams: the United ...
*
Four Nations Tournament
*
CONCACAF W Championship
The CONCACAF W Championship (previously known as the CONCACAF Women's Championship, CONCACAF Women's Invitational Tournament, CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup and CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying) is a football competition organized by the Confede ...
*
CONCACAF W Gold Cup
The CONCACAF W Gold Cup is an upcoming international women's football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the member associations of CONCACAF, the regional governing body of North America, Central America, and the Car ...
*OFC Women's Championship
*UEFA Women's Championship
*South American Women's Football Championship, CONMEBOL Sudamericano Femenino
*
Copa Libertadores Femenina
The CONMEBOL Libertadores Femenina, named as "Copa Libertadores Femenina" ( pt, Copa Libertadores Feminina or Taça Libertadores Feminina) is an annual international women's association football club competition in South America. It is organized by ...
*FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, U-20 World Cup
*FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, U-17 World Cup
Domestic leagues
* A-League Women (Australia)
* FA Women's Super League (England)
* Division 1 Féminine (France)
* Frauen-Bundesliga (Germany)
* WE League (Japan)
*
Liga MX Femenil
The Liga MX Femenil, officially known as the Liga BBVA MX Femenil for sponsorship reasons, is the highest division of women's football in Mexico. Supervised by the Mexican Football Federation, this professional league has 18 teams, each coincidi ...
(Mexico)
* Primera División (women), Primera División (Spain)
*
National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...
(USA)
Domestic cups
*Copa do Brasil de Futebol Feminino
*FA Women's Cup (England)
*FA Women's Premier League Cup (England)
*FA Women's Community Shield (England)
*NWSL Challenge Cup (USA)
Netball
* ANZ Championship — defunct; replaced by:
**
ANZ Premiership
The ANZ Premiership is the top level netball league featuring teams from New Zealand. In 2017 it replaced the ANZ Championship, which also included teams from Australia, as the top level netball league in New Zealand. It is organised by Netball ...
in New Zealand
**
Suncorp Super Netball
Suncorp Super Netball is the top level netball league featuring teams from Australia. In 2017 it replaced the ANZ Championship, which also included teams from New Zealand, as the top level netball league in Australia. Since 2019, the league has ...
in Australia
* Netball and the Olympic Movement
Ice hockey
*Alpine Cup
*Ice hockey at the Asian Winter Games, Asian Winter Games
*Clarkson Cup
*Coupe Dodge
*Elite Women's Hockey League
*Esso women's hockey nationals
*4 Nations Cup
*MLP Nations Cup
*NCAA Women's Frozen Four
*IIHF Challenge Cup of Asia
*IIHF European Women's Champions Cup
*IIHF European Women Championships
*IIHF World Women's Championships
*IIHF World Women's U18 Championships
*
Premier Hockey Federation
The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...
*Ice hockey at the Olympic Games, Women's hockey Tournament at the Olympic Games
*WickFest
*1987 World Women's Hockey Tournament
*1995 Women's Pacific Rim Championship, Women's Pacific Rim Championship
*Ice hockey at the Winter Universiade, Winter Universiade
Softball
*Softball at the Summer Olympics, Softball at the Olympics
*Softball at the 1996 Summer Olympics
*Softball at the 2000 Summer Olympics
*Softball at the 2004 Summer Olympics
*Softball at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Golf
The
Ladies European Tour
The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1978. It is based at Buckinghamshire Golf Club near London in England. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal stru ...
is Europe's leading women's professional golf tour and formed as the WPGA in 1978. Over the last 33 years, the tour has developed into a truly international organization and in 2011 operated 28 golf tournaments in 19 different countries worldwide.
Cricket
The Women's Cricket World Cup, ICC Women's world cup, ICC Women's T20 World Cup, ICC Women's T20 World cup and the Women's Asia Cup are the major women's cricket tournaments. Women's cricket was also included in the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Tennis
*Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam
Active women's professional leagues and associations
See also
* Women's sports
* Professional sports
* Mixed-sex sports
* List of female sportspeople
* Major women's sport leagues in North America
* :Sportswomen by sport
* :Women's national sports teams
* Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)
*
National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...
(NWSL), effective replacement of the following defunct leagues:
**
Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...
(WPS)
**
Women's United Soccer Association
The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first Women's association football, women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000 in sports, 2000, the league began its first se ...
(WUSA)
* USL W-League (defunct)
* USL Super League (second-level; planned launch in 2023)
* United Women's Soccer
*
National Pro Fastpitch
National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), formerly the Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL), was a professional women's softball league in the United States. The teams battled for the Cowles Cup.
The WPSL was founded in 1997 and folded in 2001; the NPF revive ...
(NPF)
* National Ringette League (NRL)
* Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL)
*
Canadian Women's Hockey League
The Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL; french: Ligue canadienne de hockey féminin ‒ LCHF) was a women's ice hockey league. Established in 2007 as a Canadian women's senior league in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, and Ottawa, the league ...
(CWHL)
* Legends Football League
References
External links
Meg Hewings, Women's pro league could help grow hockeyin Hour.ca, September 16, 2010.
in Vancouver Sun March 7, 2011.
in Times Colonist, March 8, 2011.
in Calgary Herald, March 23, 2011.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Women's Professional Sports
Women's sports, *
Professional sports