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Women's Sports Radio - Could it work?

M

MrCrumpets

As a current women's sports (Aussie Rules) broadcaster, and ex-radio DJ (mainly small rural/regional Australian markets), I've always wondered if in the USA a Women's Sports Radio format could work?

I listen to a bit of Sports Talk Radio from the US, mainly San Diego's The Mightier 1090 (a Mexican border blaster), and occasionally just the straight up SportsGrid Radio feed, plus occasional listening to sports stations in Las Vegas and California's inland empire.

The one thing I note about (almost all of) these stations is the lack of airing, or any talk of, women's sports. In a way, I get it. These stations are very male skewed - or as we say in Australia, very blokey - and would not appeal to their current audience. SEN here in Australia do air about one AFLW (Australian Football League Women's) game a week, and when they air any women's sport topic, there's usually complaints online from the male audience.

That said, as shown by ESPN's recent TV Deal with the NCAA - with a big chunk of coin for the Women's March Madness - and the Canadian TV ratings (CBC and TSN) for the opening games of the PWHL (Professional Women's Hockey League), there's a growing appetite for women's sport, and the possibility of new audiences to be reached.

Heck, in the last 24 months, we've seen Sports Bars dedicated to showing women's sport open in Oregon, Washington and (in March) Minnesota.

-------------

Doing a bit of research, I discovered quite a number of NWSL, WNBA, PWHL and College teams have a lack of a traditional AM/FM broadcaster. Some do have an internet only stream.

This is not unique to the USA. In Australia, the AFLW has a number of radio broadcaster partners 'by default' (resulting from the Men's deal), but those partners broadcast a very limited number of games. In fact, my volunteer group WARF Radio broadcast double (or more than triple in some cases) the amount of games (41 out of a possible 90) the main broadcasters did, and for zero rights fee - although the deal did not include finals (playoffs).

I'm imagining a group who begins a Women's Sports Radio format would be able to get the radio rights for nothing for a lot of these women's sport teams, or at least at a very low rate, or on a partnership arrangement (split the in-game revenue). Most of the cost will probably be paying for the commentators and an Outside Broadcast Tech, with flights/accommodation to away games being done on a contra basis.

Now, live sports will only fill so much air time (and there's some more on that later), so how do we fill the rest? Well, the key is to NOT follow the format of what the current sports talk format is. That type of 'fire up the listeners and get the clickbait' won't appeal to the (what will be) female audience.

The only live/in-house produced programming I see, is like ESPN Radio's SportsCentre All Night. Have a producer and sports journalist come in at 3am, and get them to whip up an hour of women's sport news/highlights/sound grabs and repeat that hourly from 6am to 10am. And yes, there's enough content out there. Women's sports' audiences are not like the men's which is based solely around the NFL, with a splash of College Football, the NBA and MLB. The women's sports audience is interested in Volleyball, Soccer, Softball, even Cricket and anything else women excel at.

So, what about the rest of the hours during the day (and nights of no live sports)? Akin to ESPN licencing the rights to air two hours of The Pat McAfee Show, this format would reach out to independent podcasters in the women's sports space. Those who are good enough would be offered a partnership - the station airs their programme for free, and they get two minutes per hour (of their show) and in-show to sell to their own sponsors. The station would mainly fill the rest of the commercial time with 'Run of Station' spots and promos pushing the station's cash cow, the live sports broadcasts.

---

What markets should be targeted for a Women's Sports Radio format. This niche format would have to aim at bigger population centres and left-leaning, Democrat states. The West Coast would seem ideal to build a small network out of. Stations in Portland, Oregon (Portland Thorns); Seattle, Washington (OL Reign and Seattle Storm); San Francisco, California (Bay FC and soon a WNBA team); and possibly a Mexican border blaster (690AM?) hitting Southern California for Los Angeles (Angel City FC and LA Sparks) and San Diego (San Diego Wave).

---

Anyway, that's just an idea from some random Aussie sports broadcaster, who sadly hasn't won the lottery to fund this type of project.
 
MrCrumpets said:
As a current women's sports (Aussie Rules) broadcaster, and ex-radio DJ (mainly small rural/regional Australian markets), I've always wondered if in the USA a Women's Sports Radio format could work?

I listen to a bit of Sports Talk Radio from the US, mainly San Diego's The Mightier 1090 (a Mexican border blaster), and occasionally just the straight up SportsGrid Radio feed, plus occasional listening to sports stations in Las Vegas and California's inland empire.

The one thing I note about (almost all of) these stations is the lack of airing, or any talk of, women's sports. In a way, I get it. These stations are very male skewed - or as we say in Australia, very blokey - and would not appeal to their current audience. SEN here in Australia do air about one AFLW (Australian Football League Women's) game a week, and when they air any women's sport topic, there's usually complaints online from the male audience.

That said, as shown by ESPN's recent TV Deal with the NCAA - with a big chunk of coin for the Women's March Madness - and the Canadian TV ratings (CBC and TSN) for the opening games of the PWHL (Professional Women's Hockey League), there's a growing appetite for women's sport, and the possibility of new audiences to be reached.

Heck, in the last 24 months, we've seen Sports Bars dedicated to showing women's sport open in Oregon, Washington and (in March) Minnesota.

-------------

Doing a bit of research, I discovered quite a number of NWSL, WNBA, PWHL and College teams have a lack of a traditional AM/FM broadcaster. Some do have an internet only stream.

This is not unique to the USA. In Australia, the AFLW has a number of radio broadcaster partners 'by default' (resulting from the Men's deal), but those partners broadcast a very limited number of games. In fact, my volunteer group WARF Radio broadcast double (or more than triple in some cases) the amount of games (41 out of a possible 90) the main broadcasters did, and for zero rights fee - although the deal did not include finals (playoffs).

I'm imagining a group who begins a Women's Sports Radio format would be able to get the radio rights for nothing for a lot of these women's sport teams, or at least at a very low rate, or on a partnership arrangement (split the in-game revenue). Most of the cost will probably be paying for the commentators and an Outside Broadcast Tech, with flights/accommodation to away games being done on a contra basis.

Now, live sports will only fill so much air time (and there's some more on that later), so how do we fill the rest? Well, the key is to NOT follow the format of what the current sports talk format is. That type of 'fire up the listeners and get the clickbait' won't appeal to the (what will be) female audience.

The only live/in-house produced programming I see, is like ESPN Radio's SportsCentre All Night. Have a producer and sports journalist come in at 3am, and get them to whip up an hour of women's sport news/highlights/sound grabs and repeat that hourly from 6am to 10am. And yes, there's enough content out there. Women's sports' audiences are not like the men's which is based solely around the NFL, with a splash of College Football, the NBA and MLB. The women's sports audience is interested in Volleyball, Soccer, Softball, even Cricket and anything else women excel at.

So, what about the rest of the hours during the day (and nights of no live sports)? Akin to ESPN licencing the rights to air two hours of The Pat McAfee Show, this format would reach out to independent podcasters in the women's sports space. Those who are good enough would be offered a partnership - the station airs their programme for free, and they get two minutes per hour (of their show) and in-show to sell to their own sponsors. The station would mainly fill the rest of the commercial time with 'Run of Station' spots and promos pushing the station's cash cow, the live sports broadcasts.

---

What markets should be targeted for a Women's Sports Radio format. This niche format would have to aim at bigger population centres and left-leaning, Democrat states. The West Coast would seem ideal to build a small network out of. Stations in Portland, Oregon (Portland Thorns); Seattle, Washington (OL Reign and Seattle Storm); San Francisco, California (Bay FC and soon a WNBA team); and possibly a Mexican border blaster (690AM?) hitting Southern California for Los Angeles (Angel City FC and LA Sparks) and San Diego (San Diego Wave).

---

Anyway, that's just an idea from some random Aussie sports broadcaster, who sadly hasn't won the lottery to fund this type of project.
Click to expand...
That's a lot of logical thinking but..
Almost no one watches women's sports here in America, not even women. I'm not trying to offend anyone or anything. How high are the ratings for WNBA or NWSL games?
 
How many women would consider themselves 'sports enthusiasts'? 20% of the female audience, perhaps?
 
101.9 La Kalle said:
How high are the ratings for WNBA or NWSL games?
Click to expand...
Pretty minimal.
The WNBA team in Phoenix published their ratings as a way of touting their new OTA TV broadcast agreement, and they only had ~7000 viewers in a market of almost 5 million.

I wasn't able to find any data on 2023 NWSL regular-season matchups (which primarily aired on CBS Sports Network and streamed on Paramount+). But the ratings were apparently good enough to command $60 million per year going forward, in a partnership with ESPN/ABC, CBS/CBSSN, Ion, and Amazon.
 
There are pockets of interest in some women's sports in this country -- women's basketball in Connecticut and the Knoxville area, for example -- but attracting viewers to radio play-by-play, or TV for that matter, has always been a problem. A major obstacle that will remain in place for the foreseeable future is the vast gap between men and women in interest in ANY spectator sports. (Whether that is biological or societal in nature is subject to debate that would get heated in a hurry, so I hope this post doesn't spark one.) It doesn't seem to be a red state/blue state issue, either. Connecticut is liberal, Tennessee is conservative.

As an older, liberal-leaning male, the only women's sport I follow is tennis. Women's basketball, soccer and ice hockey hold no interest for me, as I find them slower, sloppier and less exciting than the men's version of those sports, which I do follow. Softball fails on aesthetics alone -- the flat dirt infields are butt-ugly and the clink of the bat is grating. Some would say I should feel guilty about this (ESPN, especially, it seems.) and maybe I should. But I really hope that there's something beside dumb prejudice behind the way I perceive all this.

By the way, I don't watch golf, lacrosse or volleyball at all, whether played by men or women.
 
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To be realistic about it. ESPN seems to be having a hard time supporting a linear 24/7 radio network. Right now, all of radio is struggling. So launching anything new is very risky in terms of financial support.

Seems to me someone started an all-female talk radio network back in the 90s. It lasted a year or two. Doing something that targets only females guarantees you miss half of your potential audience.
 
I found women's soccer and hockey interesting to watch. It isn't the same as the men's side (especially hockey) but it can be very competitive. As for attracting an on-air audience.....that is a big unknown to me.
 
Nope.. not long term commercially viable or it would already be done.

Womens basketball would have the biggest audience.

Anything else would have more audience in the stands than on the radio.... and thats not saying much.

it would be like the OANN or NewsMax of radio.... on signals no one could hear or if thjey did, theyd forgotten about them years ago/thought theyd already gone off the air.
 
TheBigA said:
To be realistic about it. ESPN seems to be having a hard time supporting a linear 24/7 radio network. Right now, all of radio is struggling. So launching anything new is very risky in terms of financial support.

Seems to me someone started an all-female talk radio network back in the 90s. It lasted a year or two. Doing something that targets only females guarantees you miss half of your potential audience.
Click to expand...
That might have been Greenstone Media (?), or some similar named radio company. The idea was that women were underserved in talk media, and there was a market for women's talk shows. I think it was put together before the PPM rolled out and slashed ratings for shows that catered to women, like the Delilah show.

At the same time, doesn't AC and CHR target women, primarily?
 
Here in Seattleland the Storm WNBA team was a national champion team, and they get tons of exposure in the local newspaper (even more coverage than a couple hockey and local baseball teams that draw more fans to the arenas), but I am not aware of any of the local women's sporting teams getting much radio airtime. Last year, the Storm's games were on local TV, though.

The Storm (WNBA), the Reign (soccer), they're popular here but I don't think radio is going to give them more coverage than they're already getting. If it can't work here in Seattle, I sort of doubt a women's sports network would work nationally.

At the same time, I would gather that online streaming of games is the thing. And maybe there's a women's sports podcast that needs to be made. Right now, it seems that radio isn't biting.

Sports radio networks are kind of odd -- in the 2010's there was a Hispanic sports radio network in the US, ESPN Deportes. It eventually failed. One would think that with all of the Latinos in the US, who love their sports as much as anyone else, there would be a market for Spanish language Sports talk and coverage, as the Mexican soccer teams have US fans. But as Mr. Eduardo here pointed out a few years back, the Spanish language sports market in the US is fragmented, and ESPN Deportes failed for a reason.

So although one would think that maybe a Women's Sports radio network could work, the reality may be very much different.
 
boombox4 said:
Here in Seattleland the Storm WNBA team was a national champion team, and they get tons of exposure in the local newspaper (even more coverage than a couple hockey and local baseball teams that draw more fans to the arenas), but I am not aware of any of the local women's sporting teams getting much radio airtime. Last year, the Storm's games were on local TV, though.

The Storm (WNBA), the Reign (soccer), they're popular here but I don't think radio is going to give them more coverage than they're already getting. If it can't work here in Seattle, I sort of doubt a women's sports network would work nationally.
Click to expand...
You'd think that liberal Boston would be a natural for women's sports, but actually it's a market that's been indifferent to all women's team sports that have ever been tried. No interest in women's soccer or hockey, Boston College women's basketball draws flies except when UConn comes to town, and the Celtics knew from the start that a WNBA team would play to empty seats at the Garden and didn't even offer to put a women's team there. It went to Huskies-mad Connecticut instead. Although the bloom is off the UConn women's basketball rose now, with the student body increasingly focused on the men's team while the women draw a lot of grandmother types.
 
Radio is not really the way to grow an audience for Women's sports. The best way to do that is with TV. Once it reaches a tipping point in terms of viewers and fans then radio could possibly follow. Even then I think some mix of a satellite radio channel and podcasting would better serve the audience rather than some daytimer AM stations spread across the country.
 
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