Everyone’s Watching Women’s Sports. Why Aren’t They Betting on Them?

If betting built the modern sports fan, why are we leaving half the audience out?

In 2025, women’s sports are undeniably still the moment.

Caitlin Clark is selling out arenas and averaging over 17,000 fans per game for the Indiana Fever - up 265% year-over-year. Angel Reese made headlines not for a buzzer beater, but for a Thom Brown gown at the 2025 Met Gala. Paige Bueckers has made her professional debut with the Dallas Wings, and Juju Watkins is leading USC to new heights.

Ratings are up. Cultural relevance is at an all-time high.

So why is the betting market still lagging behind?

This year, just 2% of total March Madness bets were placed on the women’s tournament, according to The Athletic. Even though ESPN and CBS gave the women’s Final Four primetime treatment, sportsbooks barely moved. Limited lines. Few props. Almost no promotions.

The disconnect isn’t just frustrating — it’s a missed opportunity.

The Attention Economy Isn’t the Problem — the Betting Infrastructure Is

Fan interest is there. What’s missing is the system to convert that interest into deeper engagement.

1. Markets Still Don’t Exist in Full
   Outside of championship weekends, women’s games remain underrepresented across FanDuel, DraftKings, and other books. Prop bets, Same Game Parlays, live lines - all of them are limited or missing altogether. Bracket contests for the women’s tournament remain far less visible or incentivized than their men’s counterparts.

2. The “Data Deficit” Excuse
   Oddsmakers say they hesitate to price women’s games due to lack of betting history and internal data modeling. But that argument only reinforces a cycle: no lines → no betting → no data → no progress. It's a loop that only ends when someone breaks it - with investment.

3. Betting Content Still Ignores Women’s Sports
   While women’s sports now regularly outdraw some men’s events in ratings, you wouldn’t know it from podcasts, fantasy sites, or pregame betting shows. Most content creators ignore the space entirely. There’s no “Ringer for the WNBA.” There’s no fantasy-first TikTok creator covering Juju Watkins like they would Bronny James.

4. Abuse Is Still a Barrier - and a Justified One
   According to The Athletic, women athletes received 3.4x more harassment related to betting than male athletes during March Madness. Betting isn’t just money — it’s emotion. And when that turns toxic, female athletes disproportionately bear the brunt.

But Here’s the Catch: When the Industry Shows Up, So Do Fans

In 2025, ESPN expanded its bracket challenge to equally promote both men’s and women’s March Madness — with push notifications, homepage slots, and daily highlight coverage. The result? Participation in the women’s bracket more than doubled, with over 30% of users filling out both brackets — up from just 12% in 2024.

On the sportsbook side, FanDuel launched a dedicated promo campaign around the WNBA Draft and Opening Weekend. Their internal estimates showed handle on women’s basketball markets jumped 120% compared to the same period the previous year — even with minimal TV promotion.

And in the NWSL, the league’s new $240 million media rights deal brought consistent streaming to Amazon Prime, linear exposure on CBS, and shoulder content from ESPN. The effect? Average viewership grew 35%, and several sportsbooks reported a “measurable uptick” in weekly betting volume on NWSL matches — where previously, coverage was almost nonexistent.

This isn’t a demand issue. It’s a product, promotion, and investment issue.

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The Disruptive Playbook: How to Catch Betting Up to the Moment

Here’s what needs to happen now — not later:

1. Normalize Year-Round Markets
Build betting options for women’s sports into the core product, not just around tentpole events. Treat the WNBA like the NBA, not a seasonal pop-up.

2. Close the Data Gap
Books and leagues should jointly invest in deeper stat feeds, performance modeling, and injury tracking - the kind of backend infrastructure the men’s game has relied on for years.

3. Build Content That Meets Fans Where They Are
Betting picks, social creators, preview pods, fantasy breakdowns - the fan infrastructure that makes betting sticky needs to be built for women’s sports fans, not just copied over from men’s formats.

4. Protect Players, Period
This can’t scale without safety. Harassment moderation, betting-related abuse penalties, and verified ID for high-volume bettors should be standard protocol.

5. Market with Intention
Don’t bury the Caitlin Clark line under 30 men’s NBA props. Don’t wait until the Final Four to feature Reese or Watkins. Bring them to the front of the app - and the front of your campaigns - like any other star that moves markets.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You don’t grow women’s sports without growing how fans participate. Betting and fantasy helped build the modern fandom model. They’ll help elevate women’s sports too - if the industry stops waiting for demand and starts building for it.

The audience is here. The moment is now.

All that’s missing is the infrastructure to match it. Who will step up?