Sports Business | The GIST

Fanfare around Team USA women’s hockey win illustrates how far game has grown thanks to PWHL

We’ve seen Olympic popularity spark the growth of year-round leagues, from track & field to fencing. However, the best example may be women’s hockey: As recently as 2022, there was ongoing debate about whether women’s hockey belonged at the Olympics, but the PWHL is helping rewrite the narrative.

February 24, 2026

Women’s college volleyball gets the college basketball treatment with first-of-its-kind Paradise Invitational

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Yesterday, GS Sports — a sports event company that primarily hosts elite youth basketball competitions — announced its first foray into college sports with the Paradise Invitational. This will be a first-of-its-kind NCAA women’s volleyball showcase featuring four top teams facing off in the Bahamas.

February 24, 2026

Everyone is playing (and paying) women’s flag football

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While there’s still higher male participation in the U.S., flag football is rapidly flourishing among women and girls. During the 2023–2024 season, nearly 43K girls played in high school (105% increase YoY), while other data suggests about 500K girls aged 6 to 17 years old participated at some level in 2023.

February 21, 2026

Olympic, Paralympic brands dazzle in front of record global audience at Milano Cortina 2026

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Americans dig the Winter Olympics. Last week, the first five days of the Winter Olympics wrapped with 26.5M viewers across NBC platforms, a 93% increase over a comparable period at Beijing 2022. This has been followed with record-breaking global audiences fueled by digital and social growth: Social engagement has doubled since Beijing 2022, with Olympic digital platforms surpassing 100M users.

February 19, 2026

Parity SVP Alana Casner explains why brands adore athlete moms

Let’s be clear: Advertisers do portray mothers across advertising, more so than women without children. But the standard portrayal features mothers as caretakers engrossed in domestic tasks and has changed little since the 1950s.

February 14, 2026

Athletes, celebrities, and executives illustrate brand opportunity at Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics are underway and seem to be trekking in the footsteps of Paris 2024, a.k.a. the “Social Media Olympics.” Once again, we’re seeing trends play out in real time as athletes and celebrity fans play an increased role in driving brand engagement. We’re breaking down the top headlines out of Milano Cortina this week.

February 12, 2026

AI prominence in Super Bowl ads ignites conversation about its role in women’s sports

Super Bowl (SB) ads are often a pulse check on trends in the year to come, at least from an advertising perspective — after all, these are the companies betting big on reaching the most Americans possible in a single spot. And this year, many SB ads featured AI companies and some were even created by AI, although a majority of SB viewers didn’t like them.

February 10, 2026

Brands at the Super Bowl are considering women’s sports, women fans more than ever

Sports Business

Brands at the Super Bowl are considering women’s sports, women fans more than ever

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February 07, 2026

Women make their way to Radio Row

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The GIST of It Podcast

Ep #533

How Dawn Staley fosters confidence in her student-athletes

February 24, 2026

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How Dawn Staley fosters confidence in her student-athletes

It’s time to take it to the hardwood.

Today’s episode is the absolute perfect way to segue into the next major sports moment: March Madness. The Milano Cortina Olympics are done and dusted, but while some of the greatest athletes in the world were duking it out in Italy, there were major college hoops moments happening in the U.S. Who better to join the pod today to discuss March Madness, plus empowering young girls on and off the court than South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley? Co-hosts Steph Rotz and Lauren Tuiskula agree: this convo is a must-listen for any woman. Thanks again to Dove for fostering this important episode about body confidence.