1. Women attribute the origin of their fandom to familial affect

Every sports activities fan has an origin story. A plurality of sports activities followers who’re girls (36%) say they first turned followers due to the affect of their siblings or dad and mom. A barely smaller share (27%) say they turned followers due to their participation in youth sports activities. For male sports activities followers, nevertheless, practically 40% attribute their fandom to enjoying youth sports activities, with 23% citing dad and mom and siblings. This distinction could also be accounted for within the share of women and men who say they performed, or at the moment play, sports activities. Across generations, males usually tend to say they play or performed sports activities at any stage when put next with girls (75% vs. 62%, respectively).

2. Women interact with sports activities in several methods—and girls who performed sports activities have larger ranges of engagement than their nonathlete counterparts

Women who love sports activities are simply as engaged with fandom—and typically extra engaged—than their male counterparts. For instance, girls surveyed are extra possible than males to say they’ve watched a sporting occasion on TV or on-line or attended a dwell sporting occasion in individual within the final 12 months. They are additionally extra prone to say they’ve bought sports activities merchandise or memorabilia in that timeframe.

Participation in sports activities (previous or current) is a serious indicator of engagement with sports activities for ladies. Our knowledge suggests that ladies who performed or play sports activities charge themselves larger on the sports activities fan scale than nonplaying feminine followers, which appears to translate into extra engagement with sports activities. This distinction between athlete and nonathlete followers is particularly distinct for ladies: The hole between girls respondents who’re athletes versus nonathletes and the way extremely they charge themselves on the fan scale is sort of double the hole between male followers who’re athletes versus nonathletes.

Women who performed sports activities are much more possible than nonparticipating girls to say they’ve watched a dwell sporting occasion on TV or on-line. Women in our survey who’ve performed sports activities are additionally much more possible than girls who didn’t play to say they wager on skilled sporting occasions, take part in fantasy sports activities leagues, and keep season tickets or a ticket bundle (determine).

3. Women sports activities followers have extra curiosity in area of interest sports activities

Most followers in our survey—each women and men—say they comply with main sports activities like soccer, basketball, and baseball, with smaller shares in each teams additionally following ice hockey and soccer. But variations emerge when much less well-liked sports activities. For instance, girls are extra possible than males to say they comply with volleyball, gymnastics, and winter sports activities (like snowboarding and ice skating) and water sports activities (like swimming, diving, and water polo). These sports activities align with a few of the hottest occasions on the Olympic video games⁵—which draw massive feminine audiences⁶ and usually host near-equal numbers of female and male athletes.⁷ There are notable generational variations throughout the girls who responded to our fan survey, too. Interest in gymnastics, winter sports activities, and water sports activities is essentially pushed by girls who’re Gen Xers and boomers, whereas curiosity in volleyball spikes amongst Gen Z and millennial girls.

4. Sports content material consumption appears to be like totally different for ladies—and so they lean into behind-the-scenes content material

When it involves how they like to devour sports activities content material, followers throughout genders ranked dwell occasions, highlights, and clips on the high. However, girls respondents are particularly concerned about viewing extra behind-the-scenes content material, like athlete interviews and social media movies from groups, when put next with males. In basic, girls are extra possible to make use of social media to devour sports activities content material, and on these platforms, they’re particularly concerned about posts from the athletes themselves and movies of groups and athletes collaborating in viral traits.