The revolution wasn’t supposed to sound like this — two World Cup champions giggling over coffee, their mics catching the clink of ceramic mugs and the occasional, unscripted confession. Yet here are Christen Press and Tobin Heath, cross-legged on what looks like a living-room couch, dismantling the sports-media industrial complex one candid conversation at a time. Their weapon of choice? A podcast called The RE-CAP Show that the soccer luminaries host, produce and own.
Welcome to the new world order, where athletes have discovered the ultimate cheat code: ownership transforms everything. Why beg for coverage when you can call the shots?
A recent study we conducted with USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Center titled “Owning the Narrative” maps this seismic shift. In what has become a multi-billion dollar business, athletes are carving out their own media pathways, creating, distributing and monetizing original content. Podcasts, in particular, have become a major force in this vibrant new media landscape, with top shows amassing over 7 billion views on YouTube, 725 million likes on TikTok and 37 million Instagram followers.
Amid this flourishing marketplace, however, the gender gap is glaring. The study finds that only 20% of these podcasts — about one in five — feature a woman as host or guest. Despite record-breaking audiences for women’s sports, women athletes remain underrepresented as media makers, owners and decision-makers.
Which is why what Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman pulled off during WNBA All-Star weekend felt like a watershed moment. Their Twitch show, StudBudz, broke every rule of media coaching — shot on phones, streamed live without an editing net, unpredictable enough to make PR teams nervous. Yet, thousands tuned in. It was chaotic, funny, honest, authentic — and, crucially, theirs. Because they owned the channel, they could determine the format, the tone and the story. That freedom to bypass the gatekeepers and distribute content directly to fans is where the magic of athlete ownership lies.
Other pioneers are scaling the model. Serena Williams built 926 Productions; Naomi Osaka launched Hana Kuma. Alex Morgan, Sue Bird, Chloe Kim and Simone Manuel founded TOGETHXR, “a sports and lifestyle media company created for women to amplify their voice with a strong focus on representation and equality.” Bird and Megan Rapinoe’s A Touch More, Katie Hoff and Missy Franklin’s Unfiltered Waters, and Alysia Montaño, Molly Huddle and Roisin McGettigan’s Keeping Track all embody the same principle — don’t wait for coverage, make your own.
The timing could not be better. Media coverage for women’s sports reached 15%, a record in 2024. Audiences are tuning in to watch women play in record numbers: the WNBA and NWSL hit new ratings benchmarks last year, with the NCAA women’s basketball championship topping the men’s game. The momentum is global. England’s Women’s Super League and women’s tennis are all seeing record boosts. All of that is fueling even more growth rolling into 2025. New networks and platforms — like Women’s Sports Network, Just Women’s Sports and All Women’s Sports Network — are rapidly expanding, eager to engage with a new generation of fans.
Press told Sports Illustrated, “The business of women’s sports in a lot of ways fails the athletes and the fans because it was just a copy-paste of what men built, but the product of women’s sports is quite different. Now we have these new kinds of media opportunities and entities that are able to start to redesign what the media landscape looks like for women’s sports.”
She is right, when women athletes own the mic, the pipeline of stories changes. Our study reveals what this looks like in practice: the average show devotes 65% of discussion to sports and 35% to life. When women host, that balance shifts — with more authentic and nuanced storytelling, less play-by-play. Episodes with women address women’s issues 4.5 times more than men’s shows, pulling neglected stories into the spotlight. It also shifts commercial value, redirecting sponsorships to the athletes who build the audience.
Our study captures both the promise and the gap. The promise: athlete-owned media has become a trusted, fast-growing alternative to traditional sports talk. The gap: women athletes are still only a fraction of the owners, even as their sports break audience records. The challenge now is to build scaffolding — production support, smarter sponsorships and global collaboration that empowers women to launch their own shows and scale them.
If the last generation of women in sports fought for visibility, this one is fighting for — and beginning to win — ownership. And in doing so, they are defining contemporary sports culture and transforming the future of sports media.
Willow Bay was named the first female dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in 2017. A broadcast journalist, media pioneer and digital communication leader, she has advanced student-centered, industry-engaged curricula and programs, increased access to new technology and data solutions, and expanded scholarship support for the next generation of media innovators. Leading academic and industry engagement at the intersection of media, technology, sports and business, she has amplified USC Annenberg’s thought leadership around critical issues such as media innovation, the role of communication technology in the public interest, digital media literacy, and sports and social change. Bay and her husband, Bob Iger, are controlling owners of the Angel City Football Club, the most valuable franchise in women’s sports.
Anahita Mehra is a strategic communicator and storyteller at the crossroads of sustainability, gender justice, and digital advocacy. She is pursuing a Master of Digital Communications at USC Annenberg while working as a research associate with Dean Bay’s office, the Center for Climate Communication, and the USC Center for PR. Mehra has led global campaigns with the UNGA, WEF Davos, and COP, and in India, drove survivor advocacy and youth entrepreneurship projects to advance sustainable development.