A winter breakaway
From The GIST Sports Biz (hi@thegistsports.com)
Welcome back!
Although the NBA was gifted historic Christmas Day viewership (more on that below), Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has an idea or two on how to make the holiday ratings magic last all season long. Clark joined Jason and Travis Kelce on their New Heights podcast yesterday and suggested the NBA go back to basics with a shorter season and a simpler All-Star format. Genius.
NWSL
⛰️ The winning ticket
The GIST: Per Sportico, Denver beat out competing NWSL cities Cincinnati and Cleveland to secure the league’s 16th franchise yesterday. Investors reportedly paid an expansion fee of $110M, which more than doubles the previous NWSL record and marks the biggest expansion fee in U.S. women’s sports history. Another mountain climbed.
The details: The team is set to hit the field in 2026 as the NWSL’s final expansion team for the moment, an exclusivity which may have driven Denver’s price mile high. The bid was led by IMA Financial Group CEO Robert Cohen, who is putting up a significant portion of the financial backing and is expected to be the team’s principal owner.
The landscape: This may be the first major pro women’s sports team to set foot in Denver, but there’s been surging demand for women’s sports in the city. Colorado’s capital was on the shortlist for a WNBA expansion team, will play host to a PWHL game this season, and hosted 19K fans for a USWNT friendly against South Korea in June.
The WNBA comparison: In the WNBA, the Golden State Valkyries and Toronto Tempo each paid $50M in expansion fees, while Portland forked over a record $125M. There’s another key component of the purported $110M price tag: The Denver bid is expected to invest an additional amount to launch the team, like Tempo owner Larry Tanenbaum did when he pledged $115M total.
The soccer comparison: Angel City FC and the San Diego Wave both paid about $2M to join the NWSL, but by 2023, the price of expansion for franchises in the Bay Area and Boston rose to $53M. Denver’s fee essentially doubles this, representing a 55x increase in NWSL expansion fees since 2020.
- This is comparable to the 50x increase in MLS expansion fees between 2007 and 2023, when they rose from $10M for Toronto to San Diego’s record $500M. This exponential growth mirrors the ROI soccer investors are expecting, with numbers scaling even more quickly in the women’s game. Heading up the trend.
Women’s college sports
📺 A winter breakaway
The GIST: December was a winning month for sports ratings, with the NFL and NBA both benefiting from holiday downtime and marquee broadcasts. While most women’s pro sports leagues were on the sidelines last month, women’s college sports are quickly proving they can also capitalize on prime December viewership. Snow much potential.
Men’s pro sports: Per usual, NBA Christmas Day games were a slam dunk during the holiday season. The league averaged 5.25M viewers across five games on December 25th, garnering the holiday’s highest viewership since 2019 and an 84% increase YoY, virtually rescuing this NBA season’s ratings.
- It was an even bigger boon for Netflix, which scored the NFL’s Christmas Day games on its platform for the first time. The matchup between the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens broke the record for the most-streamed NFL game (24.3M), including a 27M viewership peak during Beyoncé’s halftime performance. A real life boogie.
Women’s college sports: Basketball keeps doing numbers at the college level, with USC’s JuJu Watkins’ and UConn’s Paige Bueckers’ showdown drawing 2.23M average viewers on Fox Sports. It was the second-highest-rated game on the network ever and the most-watched women’s basketball game this season.
- Plus, the 2024 NCAA women’s volleyball tournament — which spanned half of December — was its most-consumed version to date. ESPN viewers watched over 1.3B minutes across the network’s platforms as the tourney saw a 41% viewership boost YoY and 1.3M viewers for the title game between Louisville and Penn State.
Zooming out: In the TV world, viewership typically rises through December to a January peak, which makes perfect sense during the cozy (and usually cold) holiday season. While it may be a slow month for pro women’s sports, the growing audience for women’s college basketball and volleyball shows there’s key marketing potential during the colder months.
- NIL stars like Watkins and Bueckers are not only ideal for headlining matchups, but can also be promoted during the holiday season in connection with holiday spending, such as a new pair of Bose headphones sported by brand athlete Bueckers. Easy buckets.
💸 ESPN sells out ad inventory for women’s March Madness title game
Ever since the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament began using March Madness branding in 2022, the tourney’s marketing has flourished. After seeing record viewership in 2024, Disney and ESPN confirmed this week that the network has sold all advertising inventory for the 2025 NCAA Women’s March Madness championship game.
- Selling out this early is not only a first for the tournament, but shows that advertising in women’s sports is becoming increasingly valued, especially in basketball.
🏉 Ilona Maher scores as brand ambassador for skincare brand
U.S. rugby athlete Ilona Maher is continuing to make (marketing) waves while playing across the pond for the U.K.’s Bristol Bears. Last month, Maher became the first-ever brand ambassador for cult favorite Australian skincare brand Paula’s Choice and is assisting with launching products such as its new peptide-infused moisturizer.
- The deal pads Maher’s budding beauty brand portfolio, which includes partnerships with L’Oréal, Maybelline, and Secret, not to mention her own skincare brand Medalist. They glow up so fast.
💎 Diamond Sports Group sees relief in restructuring, rebrand
New year, new RSN operator. Yesterday, Front Office Sports detailed Diamond Sports Group’s (DSG) emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after successfully restructuring. DSG will now be known as Main Street Sports Group, distancing it from a damaging, 20-month bankruptcy process while also highlighting a renewed focus on local media.
🏆 Gymnast Simone Biles was named Sports Illustrated’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year in recognition of her contributions to the sport and American culture. She is the moment.
💌 VistaPrint signed as Unrivaled’s first jersey patch sponsor and its official print and design partner.
📈 High school girls basketball league Overtime Select garnered over 150M views and grew its captains’ Instagram followings by over 100K in its inaugural season.
🥍 Canadian lacrosse journalist Maki Jenner made history last month as the first woman to serve as a color analyst for the National Lacrosse League. Not bad, eh?
🏈 Under Armour hosted a girls’ flag football game for the first time at its annual youth football clinic and offered up signed cleats from flag football star Diana Flores as a prize.
🏒 The PWHL shared details about its nine-city Takeover Tour starting in Seattle, Washington, which includes open practices and a sold-out girls’ hockey clinic.
🍺 Verizon unveiled its first-ever “Super Bowl FanFest,” which will bring the Super Bowl LIX experience to 30 NFL markets with athlete appearances, local vendors, and live music. Party in the U.S.A.
Here’s what passed The GIST squad’s vibe check this week:
✈️ What to learn about
NFL travel logistics. There’s massive planning involved, from booking 200 hotel rooms to thoughtful details like player-specific room numbers.
🏀 What to read up on
The new NBA All-Star Game format, which will feature four eight-player teams and a three-game mini tournament. Keeping us on our toes.
🎧 What to listen to
The Sports Gossip Show, the pod that digs deep into the sometimes messy off-field lives of athletes. Spill the tea every week with hosts Madeline Hill and Charlotte Wilder.
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