The world can be a place of division — a cesspool of isolation and disconnect in which society often neglects the innate sense of belonging that comes with community. For centuries, sporting events have been a way for people to put aside their differences and rally behind a shared cause. Even when cheering on opposing teams, there is simply something special about millions of people tuning in at the same time to watch athletes compete. 

Nonetheless, just when a sense of unity is what our world desperately needs the most, sports enthusiasts have been met by one of the most divisive forces in modern athletics: the paywall. 

In recent years, there has been a massive rise in the number of sporting events only available to watch exclusively on services like ESPN+, Amazon Prime Video and Peacock. They continue to force sports fans to rely on paid subscriptions or, alternatively, turn to illegal streaming services to watch live sports. What used to be as simple as turning on the TV and tuning in to watch your favorite team or player has become a lingering question: Will I be able to watch this?

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My experience with the cultural shift away from cable has raised my concern about what inequitable impact this transition may have in terms of gender. Men’s leagues such as the NFL and NBA have established immense popularity and developed loyal fan bases over decades. 

These fans are more willing to pay to get past a paywall to watch their favorite teams compete. An intense emotional connection, deepened over many years, to a player or team motivates these loyal fans to actively seek out ways to watch their teams compete, an important aspect in their probability to pay extra for a service like ESPN+. 

Certain women’s sports on the other hand may not have this same advantageous fan devotion, given their historical lack of funding in comparison to men’s athletics and more recent surge of popularity.

As a women’s tennis student-athlete, I am keenly aware of how difficult it is to entice people to watch us compete despite the USC matches being free to the public. As much as I would love for our bleachers to be packed for each home game, the unfortunate reality is that we often struggle to fill half the seats in the stands.

Even when we have giveaway prizes or free food at the matches, fans often exit Marks Tennis Stadium shortly after picking up food or their free gift — sometimes even before the match begins. During match warmups, my teammates and I often scan the stadium, joking sarcastically about how the stands are packed that day as we look at an array of empty seats. 

According to a study conducted in 2024, women’s tennis was one of the most watched women’s sports in the United States, attracting 22% of viewers in the study. There is obviously a disconnect between professional and college tennis viewership. That comes from this shift to paid access programming. The professional Women’s Tennis Association is widely broadcast. The Tennis Channel streams both men’s and women’s tennis matches equally, which is likely a factor in the sport’s solid viewership. College tennis does not have this same advantage. 

I had a personal experience with this last fall when two of my teammates competed in the 2024 NCAA Division I Women’s Singles and Doubles Championships — the highest level of collegiate competition players can reach for tennis. 

As my teammates and I all attempted to tune in for the big matches, we quickly realized we needed ESPN+ to watch. I had ESPN+, so I was able to log in and watch my teammates, but others weren’t so fortunate. Our team academic advisor and avid tennis fan, Whitney Rotrock, even purchased ESPN+ solely to watch my teammates compete, paying the full subscription simply to watch two women’s college matches.

Although I’m biased, I think women’s tennis can be extremely fun to watch. If I knew nothing about the sport, however, I can’t say I would be willing to dish out $11.99 per month to watch the women’s USC tennis team compete. Not only are paywalls limiting the accessibility of watching sports and diminishing the sense of community that comes from live broadcasting, but they are also discouraging people from tuning in to new, less prominent women’s sports. 

Over the years, I’ve become a new fan of sports like women’s rugby or beach volleyball simply by stumbling upon a live broadcast while watching cable and choosing to watch out of curiosity. There are so many thoroughly engaging and extremely competitive women’s sports out there, but access to them can be confusing and hard to follow, with each sport scattered across a different platform and given minimal advertising. 

Paywalls are disproportionately affecting less mainstream sports, many of which are women’s sports that are already fighting for equitable coverage and treatment in other aspects of the industry. I would love to see less mainstream women’s sports made free on ESPN+. This could potentially get people interested and engaged with these lesser-known teams and athletes, eventually leading to a wide enough demand for the teams to benefit from being behind a paywall rather than discouraging interest from the start. 

As we know, women’s sports are becoming more popular and reaching wider audiences. Streaming services should embrace this shift in momentum and look for ways to accelerate interest in women’s athletics rather than extinguish it.

Sloane Morra is a senior giving her opinions and perspectives on current issues in women’s sports through her column “Second Serve,” which typically runs every other Friday.