As many may know, Sunday marked the end of one of the biggest events in women’s sports — the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
But I’m not here to talk about how the U.S. destroyed Japan in the final because odds are you watched it with your own eyes.
According to Sports TV Ratings, the team’s 5-2 victory over Japan garnered a 15.2 overnight rating, averaging 25.4 million viewers on Fox, “destroying both the 8.6 overnight rating for the USA-Japan final in 2011 and blowing past the 13.3 overnight for the USA-China final in 1999,” according to Sports TV Ratings.
Roughly two weeks ago, Sports Illustrated analyst Andy Benoit dismissed women’s sports as “not worth watching.” Besides raising the eyebrows of many fans, celebrities and other analysts, Benoit opened a debate in the middle of the biggest women’s sporting event: Do women’s sports matter?
Many people like Benoit, who works for an entity that puts out a swimsuit issue every year dedicated to women who aren’t in sports, seem to think they don’t.
I completely disagree. Gender equality in athletics and sports has recently been prioritized, and women’s sports matter just as much as men’s sports nowadays.
According to the official website of the Olympic Movement, Olympic.org, women competed for the first time at the Olympics in 1900 in Paris.
From a total of 997 athletes, 22 women competed in five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrianism and golf.
With the addition of women’s boxing to the Olympics, the 2012 Games in London were the first in which women competed in all the sports on the program. Since 1991, any new sport seeking to join the Olympics must also have a women’s version of the competition.
At the 2012 Games in London, 44 percent of the participants were women.
Some analysts argue women don’t draw in enough ratings, but that is mainly because networks and sponsors believe they may end up losing money if they sponsor women’s sports. With the shattering records that the FIFA Women’s World Cup showed, hopefully that will change soon.
Even at LSU, public interest has been growing, drawing fans to attend to more female sporting events. LSU gymnastics drew a record crowd to the PMAC this past spring with 13,179 on March 6 against Minnesota, and the softball team sold out Tiger Park in the Super Regional against Arizona.
In the fall, the volleyball and soccer teams will be in full swing, and I encourage you to go out there and support our teams because that support fuels their performances and could potentially help us win more national championships.
As long as female athletes keep doing well domestically, both at LSU and in the U.S., I believe women’s sports will keep drawing more viewers, proving that women’s sports matter — now more than ever.
Javier Fernández is a 26-year-old English senior from Guatemala City, Guatemala.