AWSN: Will it change the game for fans of women’s sports? - Alice Soper

Whoopi Goldberg aims to change the way we watch women's sports. Photo / Getty Images

Alice Soper is a sports columnist for the Herald on Sunday. A former provincial rugby player and current club coach, she has a particular interest in telling stories of the emerging world of women’s sports.

OPINION

It was this 90s child’s dream to see none other than Whoopi Goldberg sit on a talk show couch to announce the launch of AWSN, the All Women’s Sport Network. A new global network dedicated to all women’s sports, all the time. As a fan who has long survived on breadcrumbed coverage, such an offering feels like glorious gluttony. However, whether this network can satiate growing appetites remains to be seen.

It reportedly took 16 years for Goldberg’s vision to be realised in the launch of this endeavour. So much has changed in the world of women’s sports since then. Back in 2008, professional contracts were few and far between. Most coverage for women in this country was limited to netball or pinnacle events like the Olympic Games. This was in part due to feeble international offerings – the launch of the World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series was still four years away.

It’s 2024 now though, and I was overwhelmed as I scrolled across the live women’s options on Sky Sports last weekend. Rugby league, basketball, football, netball and Aussie Rules were all there all competing for eyeballs. Meanwhile, on free-to-air, TVNZ screened premiership hockey and the Women’s Tennis Associations finals. It’s all this sport, already on our screens, that is the first major hurdle for this new network.

Goldberg claimed, “If a woman is playing it, we’re showing it”, but in order to do that you need the broadcast rights. Buying your way into this market won’t be cheap, as folks have finally switched on to our potential. It’s not just traditional sports broadcasters like Sky or ESPN but also streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+ who have been making moves. Outside of this, there is a reclaiming of content by the sports bodies themselves. Platforms like Rugby Pass TV seek to fill the gaps in local broadcast for their diehard fans.

The question is then, how deep are their pockets? AWSN will be reaching into them frequently if they want to lure any of this content away from its current home. If they’re ready to pay for play, that’s great news for the growth of women’s sport. And if they aren’t, they could still change the game.

Instead of chasing the established leagues, perhaps they will instead seek to partner with the emerging ones. Already they are screening repeats of Australia’s Women’s National Basketball League to their Middle-Eastern, Asian and American audiences. Their launch comes just before that of the upcoming Women’s Elite Rugby, USA’s first professional women’s rugby competition. Platform a sport on its moment of becoming and you can grow together. Do that a couple of times and you’re now a real contender.

This offering may come at a difficult point in broadcast negotiations but it’s the right time for consumers. Products have a way of innovating themselves back to their origin. Streaming services offered the cheap unbundling of prior paid television. We are now paying so much for all these parts that we’re hungry for the convenience of that bundle once more.

Put all women’s sports into one place and take my money. I’d pay not to have live game footage cut to some blokes arriving on a bus for the next match. I’d save on time spent trying to assemble my own viewing schedule across multiple platforms.

This new sports network is entering an increasingly crowded market for women’s sports. Whether it will grow to the heights of its ambition remains to be seen. It already sees me though, and all the other women’s sports fans out here, waiting to tune in.