Today’s Scroll is all about the athletes and moments — some well-known, some less so — that helped pave the way for today’s stars.

This week, UK marketing agency Redtorch released its SportOnSearch 2024 report, which analyzes fan engagement with sports properties via Google Trends data. The findings show interest in women’s sports across the board — in fact, all women’s sports properties recorded growth in 2023.

With Black History Month coming to an end and Women’s History Month beginning later this week, today we’re celebrating a few Black women trailblazers and their historic contributions to sports.

On Wednesday, Athletes Unlimited (AU) announced that all four of its month-long pro women’s sports leagues — basketball, softball, volleyball, and lacrosse — will broadcast games on ESPN platforms. The deal is a multiyear renewal of the entertainment network’s previous agreement with AU, which saw impressive viewership growth YoY.

SponsorUnited data recently revealed that the number of sponsorship deals in pro women’s sports increased by over 22% YoY thanks to more than 5.5K deals last year. These numbers further prove the marketability of women athletes, who also see consistently higher rates of engagement.

With the U.S. celebrating President’s Day tomorrow, we’re focusing on a different kind of leadership role: the sports commissioner.

Wheelhouse Entertainment CEO Brent Montgomery and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian (aka Serena Williams’ husband) launched Mantel yesterday, a social media platform focused on the collectibles community.

From Beyoncé’s BarBey drop to Usher’s wheely cool hidden talent, here are the top moments that captured the internet’s attention in between the gridiron action.

Last Tuesday, ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced their intention to create a unified live sports streaming app. It would offer content from all three platforms, a prospect that has already spooked smaller streamers, Wall Street investors, and sports leagues.

Sportico released its list of top 100 highest-paid athletes — and none of them are women. In fact, women don’t even make the top 200. Last year’s highest-earning female athlete, Coco Gauff, raked in $22.7M, light years away from overall No. 1 earner Cristiano Ronaldo’s $275M.

College athletes keep winning major battles in the fight to be recognized as employees, a distinction that would allow them to earn income and experience labor protections. From Dartmouth to USC, the NCAA’s amateurism model is giving way to a new, labor-protected college landscape.

On Monday, a NLRB regional director ruled that under U.S. labor law, Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team members are considered the school’s employees, the first nail in the coffin for the NCAA’s beleaguered amateurism model.