The NFL has long wanted its relationship with women to be one-sided. Sure, the league wants women to be viewers, consumers of the product, and purchasers of merchandise — but, good luck when it comes to cracking down on domestic violence or supporting women in leadership roles.
It’s 2024 and it’s time for that to change. In a global sports landscape where leagues around the world have embraced the viability and popularity of women’s sports, the NFL needs to stop being a recalcitrant dinosaur. It’s time for a WNFL.
The lack of women’s contact football is entirely couched in sexist thought. A deep-seated belief that somehow women aren’t “tough enough” to play fully-fledged football. The NFL has sponsored and pushed flag football as an alternative, though that move didn’t come until recently — and it’s still a half-hearted attempt to embrace women as competitors, while still putting a very clear firewall between mens’ and womens’ sports.
The core issue is that the rest of the sporting world is showing that bubble wrapping women from contact isn’t just sexist, it’s unnecessary. There are three core case studies when it comes to women’s contact sports that not only make it abundantly clear that the sport can be viable, it can also be profitable.
The PWHL
There have been past attempts to make a viable, self-sustaining women’s hockey league dating back to the NWHL in 1999. However, while several leagues existed, none of them could really see eye-to-eye on how to execute on a vision. This lack of unified direction paired with financial mismanagement caused these leagues to all fold — until women’s professional hockey came roaring back in a major way in 2023.
With the backing of the Mark Walter Group, known for ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chelsea in the English Premier League, the Pro Womens Hockey League (PWHL) launched with six teams across north America, with three based in the United States and three in Canada.
Immediately the league got the broadcasting deal it needed to take off some of the financial pressure, with CBC, TSN, and Sportsnet all carrying games live in Canada — while a variety of regional sporting networks handled broadcasts in the United States. That is now expected to expand in year two, because the league was a runaway success.
With the season beginning in January of 2024 and running through May, the league set multiple single-game records for attendance in women’s hockey. First it was 8,318 to set a record for women’s hockey in Ottawa, then 13,316 in Minnesota to set a record in the United States. This was quickly followed with a new Canadian record in Toronto, with 19,285 watching as Toronto played Montreal— a figure that was quickly smashed when the two teams met in Montreal, with 21,105 filling the Bell Centre. That eclipsed even the highest-attended game by the Canadian Women’s National Team.
For a season that was designed to prove a concept, the concept was proven beyond all measure. On January 1st the Toronto vs. New York game pulled a staggering 2.9M viewers in Canada, higher ratings than the NHL Winter Classic attracted in Canada.
The PWHL did all this by simply not compromising the sport. This was full contact, tough, hard-hitting hockey — which happened to feature women. It didn’t turn the women’s game into a sideshow, but rather simply gave people what they wanted: More of the game they love.
The success of the PWHL’s first season garnered write-ups from the New York Times, and others — with talk of expansion already on the horizon. The league wants to build slowly, and be built to last, so while expansion might not come immediately, there are already talks of Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago, and Milwaukee looking to join its ranks — among others.
If a sport like hockey with a more traditional, niche audience can easily support the growth of a women’s league then there’s no reason the NFL can’t succeed doing the same.
The growth of women’s combat sports
While not necessarily a one-to-one comparison, any discussion of contact sports when it comes to women would be remiss without discussing the monumental success UFC has had with women fighters.
This year marks the 11th year women have competed alongside men on UFC cards, and has really served as the blueprint for the success of women in other contact sports. The additional of women to fighting proved that combat sports fans don’t necessarily care about the weight, or gender of someone who’s fighting — but simply whether or not they embody the tenets of the sport.
Ronda Rousey was unquestionably the largest star in the sport, man or woman, at her zenith in 2014 and 2015. Fears about whether a woman could finish a fight quickly, or if every bout would go to decision were erased when Rousey stepped in the ring, ending her fights with a lower average time than any man or woman in the sport.
To this day the women in UFC continue to have some of the best, most-compelling matches on cards — and there’s no stigma when it comes to their abilities. This has had a trickle down effect on pseudo combat sports as well, with professional wrestling seeing a mammoth sea change in how women are presented and promoted inside pro wrestling. Like UFC, women are now featured on wrestling cards around the world, and the popularity often eclipses the majority of men on rosters.
The AFLW
Not as well known in the northern hemisphere, the growth of the Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) competition has been a prototype for how to grow, educate, and create a league out of almost nothing.
Aussie Rules, Australia’s most-popular sport, began to explore the idea of creating a women’s competition in 2010. A commission was put together to assess the viability of women’s Aussie Rules, as well as addressing key issues in youth development to ensure a pipeline of athletes was created to stock the league.
This groundwork took seven years to reach fruition, with the AFLW launching in 2017 with eight teams. Fast-forward to 2024, and the league has been a runaway success. Over 1 million fans have attended games live, the AFLW now has 22 teams — and the league set an attendance record for women’s sports in Australia with 53,034 fans in attendance for the 2019 Grand Final.
The shared DNA, once again, is not compromising the sport. Women’s Australian Rules football plays identically to the male competition, without a need to bubble-wrap women or insulate them from heavy hits. Tackling, shoulder charges, and in-air contests are all part of the game, without an inherent desire to alter the sport.
Fans care about the sanctity of the sport. Keeping its rules intact. That has been proven to be more important than the gender of who plays the game.
Flag football is not the answer
There is absolutely a place for flag football to exist, and there’s little doubt the NFL’s concern over women’s contact football is related to concussion worries. However, passing off a watered-down version of football as a women’s replacement for the NFL simply isn’t the answer.
Ideally both versions of football could exist side-by-side, but as we’ve seen around the world the key is about replicating the game exactly — and then people can decide whether or not they want to tune in. Much like Aussie Rules Football, the NFL should launch a fact-finding commission into how they can build, support, and grow contact football among women. This change won’t happen overnight.
Currently the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA) exists without enough fanfare or funding. The 60-team league is a brilliant proof of concept, but it’s too broad to work on a national level. To this end the NFL should recruit from within the WFA ranks, building unique women’s teams in key markets — while also promoting youth football among women.
With NFL branding, support, and broadcast partnerships there’s absolutely no doubt the league could see the kind of unprecedented success the WNBA is enjoying. Somewhere in America there’s the football equivalent of Caitlin Clark waiting to be unearthed, but simply no mechanism to find these people.
At the end of the day the NFL is caught being a dinosaur while the asteroid is streaking overhead. Women’s sports are only getting better as stigma about gender roles breaks down further, which makes every passing second another second wasted without creating a women’s contact football league.
America is ready. Football fans are ready. The NFL better get ready, and creating a WNFL is the answer.
