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Some might say that I make a redundant point, that everybody knows we should watch and give equal support to women’s sport. But I would argue that the ‘should’ is gone. Millions of people are now watching and being inspired by women in sport. They are blown away by their feats of athleticism, team play and mental toughness. And this is not so because of a perceived obligation to correct a wrong or due to an effort to be politically correct. This is so because the content, drama and entertainment the women are creating is second to none. It is compelling, extraordinary and consistently inspiring. Consumers want to watch it.

Last year I went with my children to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Vancouver to see several matches and I watched as my kids cheered on elite female athletes in a stadium together with 55,000 other impassioned fans. This is our youth’s new reality. In their eyes, minds and hearts women’s sport, when produced and presented on an appropriate level, is as compelling and exciting a source of entertainment as men’s sport.

That new reality is hugely significant. Especially when you compare it to the environment we grew up in with virtually no women’s events and when there were, certainly not produced and presented on a scale anywhere near comparable to men’s sport.

So we find ourselves at an interesting intersection where tomorrow’s audience is ready and primed to view and digest content equally, but the industry charged with delivering the product is nowhere near ready to deliver it equally. Availability of women’s events, frequency of broadcast, prominence of marketing, scale of prize money, funding, sponsorship and advertising around women’s sport all lag tremendously behind that for men’s sport. In fact the disproportion is staggering. In any other industry a crisis would be declared and measures enforced to correct the imbalance.