Women's sports are booming. Why now?

In July 2020, about five months into the global pandemic, 144 WNBA players gathered in Bradenton, Fla., to play a 22-game condensed season in empty arenas.

Inside the "Wubble," a campus-style isolation zone at IMG Academy created as a work-around to social distancing guidelines, athletes took daily COVID tests, shared villas with teammates, and traded in family time for nearly three months of elite basketball. 

On the court, Arike Ogunbowale of the Dallas Wings led the league in scoring with 22.8 points per game, Las Vegas Ace centre A'ja Wilson was named MVP, and the Seattle Storm swept the Aces 3-0 in the championship series.

However, what happened off the court proved just as significant in the league's emergence.

When the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement surged following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, WNBA players were among the first professional athletes to make a public stand, filling social media platforms with their messages of support for Floyd.

And when Atlanta Dream owner Kelly Loeffler, a Republican senator, objected to their message, the players pushed back, publicly supporting her opponent in the November election, which she ultimately lost. A few months later, she sold her stake in the franchise.

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The WNBA players were suddenly front and centre, and with major program gaps brought on by the pandemic, WNBA games and social justice initiatives were broadcast on major sports broadcast channels such as ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, CBS Sports Network, and even platforms like Facebook and Twitter. 

With both the NBA and WNBA playing in empty arenas,