Came to play

The GIST: Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) announced plans Wednesday to launch its inaugural season in 2025. WER will be the first pro women’s rugby league in the U.S., replacing the existing semi-pro Women’s Premier League (WPL). It’s not a moment — it’s a movement.

The details: Although franchise locations are TBD, the league is planning for six to eight teams with about 30 players per roster. WER is being funded by private investment and is at the pre-seed funding stage. In addition to paying players and expanding across the country, the WER also plans to facilitate a full-time front office staff.

The North American landscape: Since 2009, the U.S. has been home to the WPL, a semi-pro women’s rugby league that doesn’t pay its players. The sport isn’t new in the U.S. — in fact, it was once an Olympic powerhouse. But the interruption of its pipeline in the 20th century, combined with a lack of youth programs, stifled the game’s growth.

• On the men’s pro side, Major League Rugby kicked off in 2018 with 7 teams and a Fox Sports broadcasting deal. But historically, Americans have dropped the ball on men’s rugby, with 659K Americans tuning in for the 2019 men’s World Cup final, a mere fraction of the 44.9M global viewers.

The international landscape: The English sport has long been popular abroad, especially in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Women’s leagues are ramping up development in these areas through expanded media rights and increased investment. World Rugby, for example, is marketing 2025 World Cup media rights with an aim to maximize global reach by selling to free-to-air channels.

• The 2023 Women’s Six Nations saw huge wins across the board — attendance for the Guinness-sponsored tournament’s championship was 58.5K, making it the most-attended women’s rugby match ever.

• Rugby is also gaining traction on a global grassroots level. In 2023, the number of active registered women players jumped 33.9% to 320K, with a 53.2% jump in women and girls exposed to the game.

Lingering questions: Will a women’s pro rugby league succeed in the U.S.? The powers that be seem to think so — the U.S. will host the men’s 2031 Rugby World Cup and the women’s in 2033. Whether or not WER can capitalize on Olympics and grassroots love remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t hurt if NBC Sports extended its existing rugby coverage to the league. Getting in on the ground floor.

The GIST: On Wednesday, international track and field governing body World Athletics announced it will award $50K to each event winner at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, becoming the first international governing body to do so. This will uplift athletics medalists who, until now, have been classified as amateurs and had to forfeit compensation opportunities.

The details: This award money is part of a $2.4M total prize package that covers 48 events at the Games. While it only currently applies to gold medalists, the prize fund will expand to include silver and bronze medalists at the Los Angeles 2028 Games.

• “I think it is important we start somewhere and make sure some of the revenues generated by our athletes at the Olympic Games are directly returned to those who make the Games the global spectacle that it is,” said Sebastian Coe, World Athletics president and Olympic 1500m double gold medalist. Definitely been in their shoes.

The context: It’s a bold pivot, considering the Olympics has spent over a century restricting most athletes to amateurism. And since many Olympic sports don’t enjoy year-round coverage or compensation, athletes often struggle to support the costs of training and equipment with day jobs.

The trend: As Coe mentioned, the concept of athletes profiting from their success is nothing new — in fact, it’s quite common in men’s team sports. NBA players receive 50% of the league’s total revenue through their CBA, which the WNBPA is currently fighting to give its players.

• This is what happens as businesses are able to level up, and with electric stars like Sha’Carri Richardson and Shelly-Ann Fraser bringing more attention (and sponsors) to the women’s game, the compensation model in athletics is finally on the right track.

In this newsletter, we like to highlight other organizations and their big wins, but allow us to have the spotlight for just a minute.

1M: We have over 1M GISTers across our growing ecosystem of newsletters, socials, and podcasts.

83%: The percentage of GISTers who prefer to support brands that support women’s sports and media.

91%: The ratio of GISTers who are interested in products we choose to share with them.

Assuming you’re a business person or care deeply about women’s sports, we’d love to talk about how we can authentically connect your company with our sought after audience of underserved sports fans.