The Game Changers Who Shaped 2024
From basketball superstars to the behind-the-scenes businesswomen fueling the unprecedented rise in women's sports.
As we close out 2024, I can’t help but reflect on the incredible strides we’ve seen this year in women’s sports. It’s been a year of awe—both in the athleticism on display and in the determination and resilience women have shown on the field, court, and beyond. From record-breaking investments in women’s leagues to the rise in visibility for female athletes, we’re witnessing a monumental shift.
Take the WNBA, for instance. This year, according to TIME Magazine, we saw a 48 percent increase in attendance, and games averaged 1.19 million viewers across ESPN platforms—a 170 percent increase from last year. This kind of growth has enabled the league to improve the player experience, from flying teams privately to securing major broadcast deals and sponsorships. All of this is helping build a future for women’s sports that’s stronger and more visible than ever. And it’s not just the WNBA: at the 2024 Paris Olympics, we saw female athletes take center stage, making their mark in primetime slots and elevating their marketability in ways we’ve never seen before.
It’s been a year of breakthroughs. Simone Biles-–at 27!--solidified her place as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time. Katie Ledecky tied for the most gold medals ever won by a female swimmer. These women didn’t just excel: they redefined what’s possible. For so long, sports were spaces that served mostly young men who looked up to their athletic heroes. The big acronyms—NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB–-got all the attention, time and dough. But this year, something shifted. “EVERYONE WATCHES WOMEN’S SPORTS,” tweeted Simone Biles after her first WNBA game. We still have a way to go, but it’s cool to see girls able to look up to an ever-growing list of role models who inspire them to dream bigger and aim higher.
As we reflect on this transformative year, I want to celebrate a few incredible women who have been making waves. These are the ones who’ve captured my attention, and I hope they’ll capture yours too.
Ilona Maher
Ilona Rosa Delsing Maher picked up rugby at age 17, after having grown tired of softball and other sports, at the urging of her father, who had once been a collegiate rugby player. She was then recruited to play in college–-then, three years later, was chosen to her first Olympic team. She became a household name after helping lead the United States to bronze at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the country's first Olympic medal in the sport.
Maher’s impact went far beyond her performance on the pitch. Her engaging social media presence post-competition made her a cultural icon and leading voice when it comes to body positivity. (“I show my 14 year old daughter ALL your posts,” wrote one commenter recently. “We worship you!!)
Through her photos for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue and as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, she embodied muscularity over thinness. “This is the body of a professional athlete,” she once posted on Instagram as she spun around. “It’s not perfect. It’s not completely lean. It’s not completely toned.” She has posted about her cellulite. (“It is completely normal. It is completely natural.”) She expressed her vulnerability while putting on a bikini. (“I’m not feeling too body positive right now,” she shared in TikTok captioned “Can I be vulnerable for a minute?”.) She’s a true role model for girls and young women, not just because of what she has accomplished, but because of her ability to start honest conversations among her fan base about beauty, bodies and femininity.
Simone Biles
At 27, Biles became the oldest woman to win Olympic all-around gold since 1952—an incredible feat in a sport dominated by athletes in their late teens. But her comeback story is what resonates.
In an interview with the Today Show a few months after her withdrawal from the Tokyo games in the summer of 2021, Biles said that her struggles with anxiety intensified in the months leading up to the Olympics. She spoke about being plagued by the “twisties”--a mental block that caused her to lose track of where she was in the air. “I’m trying to navigate my own unique mental health journey,” she said at the time.
This year, she returned stronger than ever, proving that self-care and perseverance are as much a part of athleticism as physical strength. Her journey is a testament to resilience and the power of trusting yourself, of listening to both your mind and body.
Michele Kang
Michele Kang, owner of the Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, and London City Lionesses, made history with a $30 million donation to US Soccer—the largest ever made by a woman. This transformative gift is focused on enhancing women’s and girls’ soccer programs, aiming to increase scouting, player development camps, and support for female coaches and referees. Her donation will impact generations of women in soccer, both players and coaches, and will help elevate the sport.
Kang, a native of South Korea, came to the US. on her own as a student, receiving degrees from both the University of Chicago and Yale School of Management. After a career working at Northrop Grumman and Ernst & Young, she founded a healthcare IT company in 2008, which was sold this year to Accenture. This summer, she announced the launch of Kynisca Sports International Ltd., a company that serves as the umbrella group for her multi-team sports ownership.
According to an interview with the Financial Times, she said she previously didn’t know much about soccer (“I didn’t even know who [Lionel] Messi was,” she told her interviewer) but was appalled by the relatively minute resources that female athletes receive compared with men. Though it was this disparity that spurred her investments in women’s teams, she also predicts major profits down the line. “I saw the potential of women’s soccer as a business, like men’s sports,” she said. “This is an opportunity-rich environment.”
Clara Wu Tsai
As co-owner of the New York Liberty, Clara Wu Tsai helped lead the team to its first-ever WNBA Championship. But her impact goes far beyond the court: her advocacy and funding for better understanding the science of female athletes has led to impactful research advances.
In 2021, she invested over $200 million in the eponymous Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, which funds studies that focus on the unique needs of female athletes. These studies cover important topics like injury prevention, mental health, and sleep patterns—essential aspects of performance that have long been overlooked. “So much of research in science and medicine is really based on men and male cohorts, especially in sports performance. But you know, females and female athletes have really never been funded as a cohort, and we thought it was important to do that,” she said in an interview with the Washington Post. “We can get a lot more granular on what women need and can also make sure that we can include the effects of hormones on performance, which is something that really isn't able to be done if you don't study females.”
Caitlin Clark
Caitlin Clark’s 2024 journey has been nothing short of spectacular. After a standout collegiate career, she was drafted first overall by the Indiana Fever and quickly made her mark in the WNBA. Her entry into the league has been a game-changer, elevating its visibility and breaking viewership records. In fact, her rookie season led to a nearly 200 percent increase in WNBA viewership—a phenomenon now known as the “Caitlin Clark Effect.”
She is now TIME Magazine’s Athlete of the Year, with a stunning photoshoot by Cass Bird (Jenna Lyons’s fiancé). In the excellent Substack newsletter Out of Your League, Frankie de la Cretaz astutely describes Caitlin’s look as “more at-ease than I’ve ever seen her in photographs… she is styled in a way that appears much more comfortable for her than many of the high fashion, hyperfeminine looks she wore in the tunnel this past season (and more in line with her everyday aesthetic). Through Bird’s lens, Clark seems much more authentically herself in a way that I haven’t really seen captured yet.”
Her influence has stretched beyond the court. Clark’s presence has drawn more attention to women’s sports, bringing more girls into the game and showing just how deep the talent pool is in women’s basketball. And let’s not forget the recent Taylor Swift concert moment where Clark’s appearance stole the spotlight! She’s got the kind of star power that transcends sports, and that’s exactly what we need to keep pushing boundaries.
As we look toward 2025 and beyond, it’s exciting to think about how these women—and many others—will continue to shape the world of sports. Across the country, women are pushing boundaries beyond what they thought they could achieve at a certain age, picking up weight training, competing in bodybuilding. Newer, trending sports such as pickleball market their appeal to this demographic. But what’s also exciting is the rise of men– dads, husbands, brothers, coaches–supporting and cheering the rise of women’s sports. LeBron James has said he is a huge fan of Caitlin Clark (whose dad once extended his driveway so that his daughter could practice those famous three-point shots). Stephen Curry brings his daughters to watch WNBA games. Ilona Maher’s dad wore a shirt with her image sprinkled all over as he cheered her on at the Olympics.
As women continue to break barriers, I imagine a future where #girldads everywhere are proudly rocking shirts with their daughters’ faces on them—because if there’s one thing we know for sure, it's that the world of sports is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
2025, we are ready.
Thanks for the shoutout!
Thank you, friend