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Re: Why Isn't Women's Hockey More Popular?
One of the problems that all women's sports struggle with is the fact that attendance at sporting events, both men's and women's, is driven largely by men. I don't have stats to call on, so we'll have to put this down as my opinion, but if you were to go to any random sporting event and ask all the men to leave, along with anyone they brought with them, you would have a nearly-empty venue. There is an obvious mom exception for youth sports; you will find moms and dads in equal numbers there.
This means that women's sports are recruiting fans one at a time, because men didn't grow up playing or watching women's sports like they did boy's and men's sports. I was a Gopher men's hockey fan since I attended the U during the Brooks era, and I was only vaguely aware of the women's team until my daughter started playing. Now, even though she is no longer playing competitively, I would rather watch a good women's game than a men's game (that doesn't mean that I have let the Gopher men off the hook, but that's a different post). But it will always be a struggle to get fans one at a time like that.
One of the problems that all women's sports struggle with is the fact that attendance at sporting events, both men's and women's, is driven largely by men. I don't have stats to call on, so we'll have to put this down as my opinion, but if you were to go to any random sporting event and ask all the men to leave, along with anyone they brought with them, you would have a nearly-empty venue. There is an obvious mom exception for youth sports; you will find moms and dads in equal numbers there.
This means that women's sports are recruiting fans one at a time, because men didn't grow up playing or watching women's sports like they did boy's and men's sports. I was a Gopher men's hockey fan since I attended the U during the Brooks era, and I was only vaguely aware of the women's team until my daughter started playing. Now, even though she is no longer playing competitively, I would rather watch a good women's game than a men's game (that doesn't mean that I have let the Gopher men off the hook, but that's a different post). But it will always be a struggle to get fans one at a time like that.