The NFL has long wanted its relationship with women to be one-sided: Sure, the league wants women to be its viewers, consumers of its products and buyers of its goods, but it has been low-key when it comes to policing domestic violence or supporting women in leadership positions.
It’s 2024, and it’s time to change that. In a global sports world where leagues around the world are acknowledging the viability and popularity of women’s sports, the NFL needs to stop being the rebellious dinosaur. The time for the WNFL has come.
The lack of women’s contact football is rooted in a completely sexist notion: the deep-rooted belief that somehow women aren’t “tough enough” to play serious football. The NFL has sponsored and promoted flag football as an alternative, but the move is more recent, and it remains a half-hearted attempt to embrace women as competitors while still putting up a very clear firewall between men’s and women’s sports.
The underlying issue is that the rest of the sports world has shown that protecting women from contact with bubble wrap is not only sexist, but unnecessary.When it comes to women’s contact sports, there are three major case studies that make it very clear that the sport is not only viable, but potentially profitable.
P.W.H.L.
There have been previous attempts to create a self-sustaining women’s hockey league, dating back to the NWHL in 1999. However, while multiple leagues existed, none agreed on how to execute the vision. Due to a lack of unified direction and mismanagement of finances, these leagues all folded, but women’s professional hockey is set to return in a big way in 2023.
Supported by the Mark Walter Group, Los Angeles Dodgers The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which includes English Premier League sides Manchester City and Chelsea, has launched with six teams across North America, three of which are based in the United States and three in Canada.
The league quickly secured the broadcast deals it needed to alleviate financial pressure, with games being broadcast live by CBC, TSN and Sportsnet in Canada, and by various regional sports networks in the U.S. Due to the league’s huge success, it is expected that broadcasts will expand in its second year.
Starting in January 2024 and running through May, the league set multiple women’s hockey attendance records for a single game, starting with a women’s hockey record of 8,318 in Ottawa, followed by a US record of 13,316 in Minnesota. A new Canadian record was soon set in Toronto, with 19,285 fans watching Toronto vs. Montreal. This figure was soon surpassed when the two teams met in Montreal, filling the Bell Centre with 21,105 fans, even surpassing the all-time attendance for the Canadian women’s national team.
It was a season designed to prove a concept, and that concept proved itself immeasurably: The Toronto vs. New York game on January 1st drew an astounding 2.9 million viewers in Canada, surpassing the ratings the NHL Winter Classic garnered in Canada.
The PWHL accomplished all this by not compromising on the sport – this was full-contact, tough, hard-hitting hockey that just happened to feature women – and rather than turning the women’s game into a sideshow, they gave the people what they wanted: more of the game they love.
The success of the PWHL’s inaugural season has drawn coverage from outlets like The New York Times and already sparked talk of expansion. Since the league wants to grow slowly and be long-lasting, expansion may not happen anytime soon, but there are already rumors of cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago and Milwaukee considering joining.
If a sport like hockey, which has a more traditional and niche audience, can easily support the growth of a women’s league, there’s no reason why the NFL can’t do the same and be successful.
The growth of women’s martial arts
While it’s not necessarily a one-to-one comparison, it’s impossible to discuss contact sports as it pertains to women without discussing the incredible success the UFC has had with its female fighters.
This year marks the 11th year that women have fought side-by-side with men at UFC, and has served as a blueprint for women’s success in other contact sports. The inclusion of women in combat sports has proven that combat sports fans don’t necessarily care about the weight or gender of those fighting, only whether they embody the tenets of the sport.
Ronda Rousey was arguably the biggest star in boxing, male or female, during her prime in 2014 and 2015. Any concerns about women being able to finish fights quickly, or that all of their fights would go to a decision, were erased when Rousey stepped into the ring: She finished her fights in the quickest average time of any fight in boxing, male or female.
To this day, UFC’s women continue to put on some of the best and most compelling matches on the cards, and there’s no stigma surrounding their abilities. This has had a ripple effect in simulated combat sports, and the world of professional wrestling has seen a major shift in how women are represented and promoted within the sport. As with UFC, women now appear on wrestling cards all over the world, often outselling the majority of the men on the roster.
AFLW (American Football League)
Although lesser known in the northern hemisphere, the growth of the Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) has become a prototype for how to grow, educate and create a league from almost nothing.
Aussie rules, Australia’s most popular sport, began considering the creation of a women’s competition in 2010. A committee was formed to address key youth development issues to assess the feasibility of women’s Aussie rules as well as ensure a pipeline of talent was built to replenish the league.
It took seven years of preparation to come to fruition, with the AFLW launching with eight teams in 2017. Now in 2024, the league has been a huge success: over one million fans watch games live, the AFLW now has 22 teams, and the 2019 Grand Final set an attendance record for women’s sport in Australia, with 53,034 fans attending.
Again, shared DNA doesn’t detract from the sport. Women’s Australian Rules Football is played exactly like the men’s game – there’s no need to bubble wrap the women or protect them from hard hits. Tackles, shoulder charges and aerial duels are all part of the game and there is no intention to change the sport.
Fans care about the sanctity of the sport and strict adherence to the rules, and that has proven to be more important than the gender of the person playing the sport.
Flag Football Is Not the Answer
There’s definitely room for flag football, and the NFL’s concerns about women’s contact football are arguably tied to concussion concerns, but pitching a watered-down version of football as a women’s NFL alternative is never the solution.
Ideally, both versions of football should be able to co-exist, but as we have seen around the world, the key is to accurately recreate the game. Then people can decide whether to watch or not. As with Aussie Rules football, the NFL should launch a commission of inquiry into how to build, support and grow contact football among women. This change won’t happen overnight.
Currently, the Women’s Football Association (WFA) exists without adequate promotion or funding. A 60-team league is a great proof of concept, but it’s too broad to function at a national level. To achieve this goal, the NFL should recruit players from its WFA peers, field its own women’s teams in key markets, and promote youth football among women.
With the NFL’s brand, support and broadcast partnerships, there’s no doubt the league will be a huge success. WNBA I’m enjoying it. There’s a football equivalent of Caitlin Clark waiting to be unearthed somewhere in America, but there’s no way to find her.
After all, the NFL is left behind like a dinosaur as an asteroid passes overhead, women’s sports is only going to get better as gender role prejudices are further shattered, and every second that passes is wasted by not creating a women’s contact football league.
America is ready. Football fans are ready. The NFL better be ready. The creation of the WNFL is the answer.
