America’s premier spectating establishment Buffalo Wild Wings was packed across the nation Dec. 21 for a classic NFL Christmas precursor. The Steelers and Ravens’ bitter rivalry attracted 15.4 million viewers, and it directly preceded the All-American women’s basketball matchup between No. 4 USC’s sophomore guard JuJu Watkins and No. 6 UConn’s redshirt senior guard Paige Bueckers.

Fans’ desert heat-rubbed wings were still sitting in the fryer, leaving them no choice but to stick around as Fox Sports transitioned to the contest in Connecticut. With tipoff at 8 p.m. on the East Coast, viewership for the star-studded showdown peaked in the first quarter with an audience of 3.76 million and averaged 2.23 million — the most-watched women’s game of the regular season.

The first frame blip sanctions skepticism. Week in and week out, football games — collegiate and professional — reach double-digit ratings, whereas most leagues hardly dream of a double-digit championship. Football fans often leave the television on after regulation, inflating the following audience data.

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An overt instance of the football effect occurred on NWSL championship weekend in November. The title match between the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit on CBS peaked at 1.1 million viewers and averaged a 0.48 rating with 968,000 viewers, marking the most-watched final in league history.

As it turns out, the championship was not even the weekend’s most-watched NWSL broadcast. That Sunday, a rerun of the NWSL Skills Challenge aired after a live NFL game and averaged 1.54 million viewers — the first NWSL audience with a seven-figure average viewership.

This outlying 59.1% increase in viewership was unquestionably a result of the NFL lead-in. Last year, sports following NFL singleheaders on CBS and Fox included bull riding, bowling and sailing; collectively they averaged 1.59 million viewers.

Football lead-ins doubtlessly assist individualized women’s sports viewership numbers, but the gridiron is not necessary for expanding audiences. 

In December, the women’s volleyball title match notched 1.3 million viewers — No. 6 of all NCAA championship games in 2024 — and the Notre Dame vs. UConn regular season women’s basketball game on ESPN acquired around 800,000 viewers on a Thursday.

Far outside of football season in the spring, the 2024 women’s basketball championship outdrew the men’s by more than four million viewers. And overall, fans of women’s sports are more willing to pay, subscribe and search for programming. 

So it looks like the question isn’t whether women’s sports need football lead-ins to get a following. But rather, can a football lead-in effectively beget long-term women’s sports audiences?

In my experience, the football lead-in is an effective exercise in exposure. It has led me to recordings of Eau Claire, Michigan’s 2019 cherry pit-spitting contest, Hassan Whiteside playing NBA 2K and most recently, the 1998 Putt-Putt Championship. 

But, surprise! I was a one-and-done viewer. Those productions were aesthetically deficient and narratively neglected. Meaning, the networks relayed a message: “We are passively broadcasting these events.” And so, I also determined that watching these sports was a poor investment of my time. 

Now, I’m not comparing women’s sports’ cultural value to The Ocho — but the media regularly treats them as such.

Major networks such as ESPN, TNT and Fox continue to fund shouting and scandals but have not green-lighted a daily studio show dedicated to women’s sports. Blurry broadcasts and mediocre storytelling remain the norm for NCAA title matches like soccer and other well-developed women’s college sports. 

If football lead-ins are to be maximized, such that viewers return for more, then brands and broadcasters must effectively advertise, promote and construct narratives around women’s sports.

Journalists and on-air personalities need to give these events the Olympic treatment. Even in a 40-second start interval between bobsled runs, announcers convey tapestries of personal history, triumphs and challenges that instantly raise emotional stakes for viewers of the least action-packed sports. 

Granted millions of viewers from an NFL game, networks should be prepared to levy 40 minutes of compelling storytelling. 

Women’s sports don’t need football to succeed, but when handled with intention, they can retain audiences derived from football lead-ins, and these first-quarter peaks can be converted to loyal fan bases. For now, as football fades out, networks, streaming platforms and wherever else sports are sourced have seven months to invest in a plan to make the most of these opportunities.

Leila MacKenzie is a junior writing about minor details in sports in her column, “Little Things,” which runs every other Tuesday. She is also the Data Editor at the Daily Trojan.