By Stéphane Mailhiot 

Women’s sports are winning fans. NCAA women’s basketball continues to draw new fans, with the average regular-season viewership having climbed over 40% in just two years. And yet, in the last month, brightly coloured sex toys have been thrown onto the court during WNBA games. Players and league officials condemned the acts as dangerous and sexist, calling the behaviour unacceptable.

The growing popularity of women’s sports and their stars is an incredible opportunity for brands. Where attention goes, marketing follows. But too often, the spotlight drifts to the athletes’ looks, overshadowing their skill and achievements. That focus perpetuates the gender bias and objectification women have been fighting for decades. And let’s be honest, marketing has been part of the problem for generations.

So what is your responsibility as a brand sponsoring a league or an athlete? The line between celebrating progress and clinging to outdated codes is blurry. Well-intended campaigns can cross into appropriation or gender-washing if they fail to address the larger question of the place of women in sport, and the place of sport in women’s lives.

It is amazing to finally see female athletes centre stage in professional sports. Media coverage is growing, momentum is building. And yet too often, the creative feels lazy, some even relying on pink as a signal that “this one’s for women.” Too often, it becomes a shortcut for brands trying to balance their traditionally male-focused sponsorship strategies with a gesture toward women’s sports.

Shouldn’t the conversation be about performance, resilience and victory? About toil, tears and sweat? Or maybe it is time to develop a new narrative. One that resonates with female athletes and their fans. One that redefines what drives them and what the pursuit of pushing beyond one’s limits brings to their lives. Marketing does not have to fall back on stereotypes.

Brands can move past the habit of leaning on feminine colours and imagery to target women. And there is more to sport than the “W” in a league’s name. Sticking with this approach carries not just the risk of backlash, but greater risk of irrelevance.

Every campaign that stops there misses the opportunity to connect in a meaningful way. In this new era of “Femvertising,” some brands are moving the conversation forward.

Canadian Tire’s Women’s Sport Initiative pledges that, by 2026, at least half of its sponsorship dollars will go to women’s professional sports. Maybelline New York and the WNBA in Canada are using purpose-driven storytelling to show athletes as confident and unstoppable, on and off the court. Knix backed the “Sport Your Period” campaign to normalize menstruation in sports and empower athletes to compete confidently any time of the month. Almost a decade after Always’ Super Bowl spot, we still remember how the campaign helped confront gender bias with its #LikeAGirl rallying cry.

The lesson is clear. Brands that want to be part of the conversation must join the right one – where women’s sport is celebrated for everything it brings to the table, to the fans and to our lives.

If the goal is to build the most popular sports on the planet, leagues and sponsors need to think beyond a narrow female audience. It took advertisers decades to realize women watch the Super Bowl too, and even longer to move away from stereotypical advertising. Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long for brands to realize men are watching women’s sports, too.

Because the evidence is strong: SurveyMonkey and Parity report that 23% of men watch women’s sports daily or weekly. And supporters of women’s sports are noticing the brands – fans who tune in daily or weekly are 3.5 times more likely to purchase a product promoted by a woman athlete compared to another type of influencer.

With a narrative that is less gendered, women’s sports can expand the very definition of sport, moving beyond borrowed stereotypes to tell richer, more relevant stories. And I cannot wait to celebrate its new stories, and the brands bold enough to be part of them.

The audience is ready, the athletes are ready. Is your brand ready?

Stéphane Mailhiot is the president of Havas Montreal

(Featured image courtesy of Unsplash / Masoud Razeghi)