When it comes to women’s sports, the industry still only possesses a relatively small piece of the pie from a business standpoint.
But that piece is inarguably growing, with CNBC’s Alex Sherman noting in his latest newsletter that the women’s sports market grew to $1.3 billion in commercial revenue in 2024 — a 30 percent increase from the year prior.
Sherman’s information came by way of Kara Nortman, the co-founder and managing partner of Monarch Collective, which is considered “largest pool of capital exclusively dedicated to women’s sports investment.” Those figures, however, were also recently confirmed by Deloitte, which projects the industry’s overall revenue to increase to $2.35 billion in 2025.
To put those numbers in perspective, that would mark a 240 percent increase in revenue over the course of the last four years. And commercial revenue remains the largest driver, with Deloitte noting “increasing brand recognition, rising fan engagement and more lucrative sponsorship deals” as the primary factors in the industry’s expansion.
Nortman pointed out that the women’s sports market still pales in comparison to its men’s counterpart, which she estimated at between $500 billion and $750 billion in commercial revenue. And that’s led to her fund primarily investing in “mature sports where there are media revenue trends” — or in other words, basketball and soccer.
“The market is still quite small,” Nortman told Sherman. “It’s a very early market. It’s venture in terms of the market dynamics, but I’d say we take a more kind of growth equity or private equity-like approach in terms of investing in the most mature parts of it.”
That lines up with Deloitte’s projections, which estimate that basketball and soccer will generate 79 percent of the revenue in women’s sports in 2025. Unsurprisingly, basketball projects as the top earner ($1.03 billion) thanks to its recent influx of young stars headlined by Caitlin Clark.
All things considered, women’s sports appears to be in an exciting place, where it possesses a proven track record but is also early enough in its growth trajectory that the industry is still taking shape. As such, it will certainly be interesting to see where it goes from here and how it continues to build on its inarguable momentum.
