iHeartMedia, Deep Blue Launch Women's Sports Audio Network

RADIO ONLINE | Tuesday, April 23, 2024

iHeartMedia

iHeartMedia and Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment today announced a new partnership to launch the Women's Sports Audio Network (WSAN), the first-ever audio platform dedicated to women's sports. The new audio platform is dedicated to covering women's sports competitions, including athletes' stories on and off the field. WSAN will be a free, ad-supported network that will include podcasts, daily sports reports, spotlights and audio vignettes.

The launch comes at a time when investment and viewership numbers for women's sports are on the rise. This year, elite women's sports are currently expected to become a $1 billion industry, representing a 300% increase in just three years, while in the U.S., women's sports still only receive 15% of media coverage.

With the launch, iHeartMedia and Deep Blue aim to amplify well-known and new influential female sports athletes and relevant programming, while unlocking access to inventory and opportunities for brands to engage in an emerging market across various sports and communities. In a recent Deloitte report, research found that for every dollar spent in women's sports, more than seven dollars was generated in "customer value for that organization."

Women's sports extends much further than the NCAA tournament and World Cup; WSAN is designed to offer talent and programming year-round with the launch of new daily shows focused on a wide range of sports and commentary from a variety of talent, including sports media personality Sarah Spain and WNBA Legend, three-time Olympic gold medalist Sheryl Swoopes, with more talent to be announced.

The new partnership with Deep Blue is led by agency veteran Laura Correnti as Founder and CEO and WNBA Legend Sue Bird as Chief Strategy Officer.

"Women's sports are on fire and so is audio. The timing is perfect to deliver on the massive fan excitement today and most importantly use the power of iHeart's massive audience reach to ensure women's sports gets the attention it deserves," said iHeartMedia CMO Gayle Troberman. "We all win when the athletes, the fans and the brands get to play together every day in the biggest audio arena on the planet at iHeart."

"While women's sports continue to break ratings and attendance records on a seemingly regular basis - it's imperative the media marketplace and commercial investment keep pace to not just meet consumer demand, but sustain this growth market," added Deep Blue Founder and CEO Laura Correnti. "By partnering with iHeartMedia, we're unlocking the ability to immediately share more women's sports stories with more fans while addressing the need for more discovery, visibility and scale - a common pain point for the advertising and media marketplace in this space."