Women’s entry into organised sports has involved impressive acts of rebellion. Take the first European women’s football championship in 1957. The four-team tournament took place in West Germany despite women being forbidden to play competitive football there. England’s Football Association also deemed the sport “unsuitable for females”. So when the English women won the tournament, forget any big celebrations at home—they were not even recognised.

Today many women footballers are superstars, thanks to a surge in interest in their sport. Even before the latest edition of the European Championship kicked off on July 2nd, more than 600,000 tickets had been sold. By the tournament’s end, sales could far exceed the last championship in 2022, which sold 570,000 tickets—itself up from 240,000 five years earlier. The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, which is currently in full, enthusiastic swing in Morocco, is breaking similar records.

Not just women’s football is booming. Attendance records are likely to be smashed at world cups for women’s rugby and cricket later this year. Money is flowing into nearly all women’s sports as interest in them grows. This has consequences at the grassroots. In part inspired by their heroines, more girls are playing on courts and fields. The rise and rise of women’s sports is upending the sports industry—and benefiting society, too.

Some mutually reinforcing trends are propelling the rise. The more women play sports, the more impressive they get. And even as contests grow more compelling, they have got easier to watch. Fans were once hostage to television networks for their sporting fix; now they can turn to streaming or social media. Ilona Maher, an American rugby player, has far more followers on TikTok than have the All Blacks, New Zealand’s formidable male team.

Big money is at stake. Deloitte, a consultancy, forecasts that revenue from women’s professional sports will jump to $2.4bn in 2025, from $692m in 2022. Corporations and tycoons are moving in. In 2023 Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, India’s biggest conglomerate, paid $111m for a cricket team in the country’s nascent Women’s Premier League. Money engenders professionalisation and deeper talent pools, while drawing in fans.

Where sport leads, society follows. At the 1964 Olympics, four-fifths of Japanese watched their volleyball team of factory workers snatch the gold off the Soviet Union. The victory nudged a conservative society to rethink women’s roles. Today Saudi Arabia is loosening the rules around women’s sports. Seven years ago girls were banned from playing in public; now 70,000 take part in the school soccer league.

Participation brings clear benefits. Sport makes everyone healthier, but children who play also do better, on average, in class. They are also happier. And in a poll by the Women’s Sports Foundation, an American non-profit, nearly 50% of women said they had acquired leadership skills, such as teamwork and handling pressure, while playing sport in their youth.

For all the growth in women’s sports, it comes from a low base. The 2.7m who attended the men’s European Championship in 2024 dwarfs the 570,000 who attended the last women’s. Last season the Women’s Super League (WSL), England’s top football league, drew around 7,000 fans per match—a steep rise, but lower than the male league’s third tier.

Progress is also uneven. Ahead of the women’s World Cup in 2023, only 40% of footballers playing in the qualifiers were professional, and only 70% received any sort of payment from their national federation, according to a survey by FIFPRO, the players’ union. Women footballers earn much less overall than their male counterparts. Cristiano Ronaldo, men’s football’s biggest earner, raked in around €200m ($232m) in 2024. His female equivalent, Aitana Bonmatí, made just €1m.

Blame the patriarchy. Men had a huge head start in organised sports, then spent decades hobbling female participation. Only in the 1990s did the global governing bodies of football, rugby and cricket start recognising women’s matches. Press and television long ignored women’s sports. Even in 2022, women’s sports accounted for a mere 15% of sports coverage across media platforms. But without more fans and viewers, who is to pay for more coverage and higher earnings?

Governing bodies in sports want to bring more players and viewers into women’s sports. FIFA aims to double to 60m the number of women playing organised football around the world by 2027 (over 250m men are reckoned to play the game). The International Cricket Council has launched a campaign to bring 250m “incremental fans” to the women’s game. Yet to up the numbers, bodies are largely following the formula used for the men’s games: they put emphasis on the same kinds of tournament formats and on traditional broadcasting channels.

Following the men is easy, but unimaginative. Existing governing bodies know how to organise and market big tournaments. Such events are well-known to fans, but familiarity can breed complacency. Women’s sports risk being consigned to remain as “miniature versions of the men’s games, unable to develop their own unique characteristics”, says Moya Dodd, a former Australian women’s football team member who later served on the FIFA Council.

Many women’s sports have already formed their own identities, often thanks to their fans. Many are new to sports: rugby’s global body reckons half of the audience for women’s matches are newcomers. Fans of women’s sports also engage with sports differently. They are 60% more likely to take their children to matches, according to Two Circles, a marketing firm. A typical women’s fan is younger than in men’s sports, and more likely to be female. Engagement happens on social media much more than in the stands or the pub.

All this suggests that women’s sports should chart their own course. One way would be to establish women’s sports federations, leagues and governing bodies that are no mere appendages of men’s organisations. Tennis has followed this path, with great success. The Women’s Tennis Association, which has run the sport since 1973, has helped make tennis a sporting leader in gender parity. Women’s tennis matches often compete with men’s for attention and top-billing, including at the most recent Wimbledon tournament. Last year, six of the ten highest earners in women’s sport were tennis players.

True, replicating tennis’s success is hard. Rebel leagues challenging the existing order are often held back. Power over sports governance is jealously held, says Ms Dodd.  “If you try to break away, you are isolated, denied resources and excommunicated until you come back into line.” Still, there are other hopeful examples. In 2021 the world’s biggest women’s sports league, the NWSL for soccer, split from America’s governing body, US Soccer, and has flourished since. The seven-strong leadership team, six of whom are women, has attracted enormous investment into the league. Last year Bob Iger, boss of Disney, spent $250m on buying Angel City, one of NWSL’s 14 teams.

Other ways to break free exist. Much of the interest in women’s sport is concentrated in summer extravaganzas such as the Euros. More die-hard supporters who watch teams every week are needed. Broadcasting games through streaming services, as the WSL does, are one way to get there.

More radical tweaks can work. In May World Sevens Football was launched in Portugal, featuring a seven-a-side version of the sport. Although it is not recognised by football’s governing bodies, the tournament has attracted big clubs, including Manchester United and Bayern Munich. The event’s boss, Adrian Jacob, argues that FIFA should welcome the new venture, for bringing money into the game. Like-minded initiatives can also be designed around the interests of female athletes. Athletes Unlimited, an American startup, has launched competitions in softball, basketball and volleyball that give players control over team selection, scoring systems and governance.

Many within women’s sports are uncomfortable with radical change, having spent decades fighting to level the playing field. But to reach their full potential, women’s sports need another act of rebellion: to leave men’s sport and all of its baggage behind. The future of women’s sport lies in innovation, not imitation.