Op-Ed: Women’s Sports Need More Than Fans: They Need More Players.
By Lindsay Davenport
Women’s sports have never been more popular with spectators. WNBA franchise valuations are soaring. The most recent March Madness and Winter Olympics both broke viewership records for women’s events.
Participation among younger girls has surged in recent years — fueled by the visibility of megastars like Simone Biles, Serena Williams, and Caitlin Clark. But the opportunity now is to make that momentum last beyond adolescence, when school teams disappear, and women lose the structures that made sports a regular part of their lives.
According to the CDC, nearly half of American women aren’t getting enough leisure-time physical activity to meet basic health guidelines. And today, adult men are nearly twice as likely as women to have played a sport in the past year.
Women ought to be playing more sports because even just a couple of hours a week can provide significant benefits for physical health, mental health, and overall well-being — and they’re fun, social, and can be played at any stage in life.
Sports are among the most effective forms of physical activity we have. A 25-year study found that social sports like tennis, badminton, and soccer can add an average of nearly 7 years of life expectancy to individuals’ lives, compared to the life expectancy of their sedentary peers.
Even modest participation can have a measurable impact. Just three hours per week of racquet sports, for example, is associated with a 56% reduction in cardiovascular mortality and a 47% reduction in all-cause mortality.
Regular sports also build confidence. It may come as no surprise that 94% of women leaders in C-Suite roles played sports in college. Sports reward discipline, resilience, teamwork, and strategic decision-making — even if it’s just a couple of hours a week.
Women make up roughly 42% of all annual tennis players — one of the highest shares across popular sports — making it more likely that a beginner can find a partner at a similar level.
It’s also widely accessible: there are nearly 270,000 courts across the U.S., many of them public. The cost of entry is relatively low, too — a partner, a racquet, a handful of balls, and access to a court is all that’s needed to try it out.
US tennis participation has grown for six consecutive years, and more than 20 million players returned to the court in 2025 — evidence that once people start playing, most keep coming back.
And its health benefits might be part of the reason why. In the same long-term study, tennis was associated with a 9.7-year increase in life expectancy — nearly double the gain observed for many other forms of exercise. And with adult women comprising roughly 80% of those with osteoporosis, tennis’s natural weight-bearing style of play helps promote bone density, for early and late starters alike.
Women’s sports shouldn’t be thriving only in stadiums and on TV. As demand for jerseys and ticket prices rise, so should casual participation. And while tennis is hardly the only option, it delivers precisely what many adult women need more of: a sport that is accessible, social, physically sustainable, and genuinely enjoyable.
Lindsay Davenport is a former world No. 1 on the WTA Tour. The three-time Grand Slam singles champion and three-time major doubles champion also won the 1996 women’s singles Olympic gold medal. The International Tennis Hall of Famer is the captain of the U.S. Billie Jean King Cup team, and serves as a commentator and analyst for Tennis Channel.
