As the popularity of women’s sports continues to grow, sponsors are lining up to endorse female leagues, teams, and athletes in increasingly greater volume.
According to a new report from SponsorUnited — a sponsorship intelligence platform — the number of sponsorships across women’s professional sports grew 20% year-over-year.
Within that figure, endorsement deals with teams and leagues grew 21%, while deals with individual athletes climbed 18%.
Finance companies led the way, notching the most deals overall (316) and seeing a 30% increase in the number of deals YoY.
- Among athletes, American soccer superstar Alex Morgan took the top spot with 27 endorsement deals in 2022 — more than any NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, or NHL athlete.
- Serena Williams (26), Naomi Osaka (23), Lexi Thompson (21), and Leyla Fernandez (20) round out the top five.
The report also notes the importance of social media on the efficacy of these endorsements: College athletes like Olivia Dunne and Hanna Cavinder made waves in the report by the grace of their social media presences.
Indeed, Dunne, Iga Swiatek, and Alisha Lehmann each averaged more than one million engagements per sponsored social media post.
