By Rory Carroll and Amy Tennery
PARIS (Reuters) โ American women from Simone Biles to Katie Ledecky and ShaโCarri Richardson will dominate the spotlight in Paris as the explosion in popularity of womenโs sports in the United States makes its way to the Olympic stage, experts said.
Those athletes are among the women featured prominently in ads for the Games on NBC, as female fans are being drawn to international sportโs biggest event like never before.
Of those seeking out Olympic news online in the U.S., 56% are women while 44% are men, according to David Steinberg, CEO of marketing technology company Zeta Global.
That could help reverse a dismal trend for broadcasters, after U.S. viewership for the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 plunged to about half the audience of the London Games in 2012.
Caitlin Clarkโs brilliance this year led the womenโs college basketball tournament to eclipse the menโs in TV ratings for the first time, dominating headlines.
โItโs like a 100-year overnight success story,โ Steinberg said. โ(Womenโs sport) has been around for a very long time but is finally getting its moment.โ
NBCUniversal said it would modernise its Olympic coverage for Paris, which includes adding elements of pop culture and bringing in social media influencers to attract more women and younger viewers.
More than half the networkโs primetime Olympic coverage will be dedicated to womenโs events, the company said.
NBCU has also adopted a different strategy to market the Olympics by having celebrities meet athletes, exemplified by R&B singer SZA joining Biles in the gym in a promotional video.
โWhat we uncovered through that exercise is there are a huge number of celebrities who are big fans in particular of female athletes, and they love the Olympics,โ said Jenny Storms, NBCUโs chief marketing officer for entertainment and sports.
โROCK STARSโ
Americans love a winner and the women of Team USA have been leading on that front, earning 66 of the United Statesโ 113 total medals in Tokyo and winning more medals than the men in Rio and London as well.
Paris marks the fourth consecutive Games to which the U.S. will send more women than men, with 314 female athletes in the team compared with 278 male.
Taking advantage of that pool of talent is another matter.
Kate Johnson, a trustee at the Womenโs Sports Foundation and Olympic rowing silver medallist in 2004, said that women have not had their stories told properly.
โNBC has got to get this right, they need to pick up on the competitive storylines with womenโs sports,โ said Johnson.
She pointed to the success of the WNBA this season, where Indiana Fever point guard Clarkโs fierce rivalries with her fellow rookies have driven television ratings sky-high, as evidence that audiences crave raw competition over puff-pieces.
โThe cultural zeitgeist has now caught up to the fact that womenโs sports are there, itโs amazing. But the truth is the U.S. womenโs Olympic team, for example, has won more medals than the men comparatively for years now,โ she told Reuters.
โThose stories werenโt getting told that well; this summer I expect that they willโฆ And itโs about freaking time because theyโve always been rock stars.โ
One of those rock stars, Laurie Hernandez, who won gold with the U.S. gymnastics team alongside Biles in Rio in 2016, praised the trailblazers.
โTennis and soccer paved the way for womenโs equality in sports,โ said Hernandez, now a broadcaster with NBC and ambassador for hospitality company On Location.
โIโm giddy to know that the coverage is happening.โ
Logan โLogistxโ Edra, a 21-year-old American B-Girl looking to dance her way to the top of the podium in breaking, said the Olympics could provide young girls with a vision of the future.
โAny type of representation is going to help people see what is possible,โ she said.
โMe seeing these women shows me what is possible.โ
(Reporting by Rory Carroll and Amy Tennery, Additional reporting by Sheila Dang; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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