I once overheard a conversation at a tennis tournament that crystallised everything wrong with how we perceive women's sports. An extraordinary women's doubles match had just concluded, leaving those of us in attendance breathless. The stands, half-empty during that brilliant exchange, began filling rapidly as the men's match approached. A spectator near me gestured toward the courts and announced to his companion with casual certainty, "That was just the warm-up. The real match comes next." The "real" match. Two simple words that encapsulate centuries of sporting inequality.

This hierarchy isn't merely implied – it's built into the very structure of our sporting events. Women's finals scheduled before men's. Lower ticket prices for women's tournaments. Smaller courts. Earlier time slots. The message is unmistakable: what you're watching is the prelude, not the main event. Yet in this presumed opening act, something revolutionary is happening. The supporting cast is steadily rewriting the script, challenging not just who gets top billing, but the very nature of how we value athletic achievement.

The Supporting Act That Outperforms the Headliner

When the Lionesses claimed victory at the European Championship in 2022, they didn't just win a tournament – they shattered viewing records. 17.4 million people watched on BBC One as they defeated Germany, making it the most-watched women's football match in UK history and the most-watched television event of the year. For context, that's more viewers that tuned in for the Queen's funeral.

The economic impact tells an even more compelling story. According to a report by the Women's Sport Trust, the tournament generated £54 million for the English economy – with an additional £4 million in ticket sales alone. The final at Wembley sold out in less than an hour.

Yet despite these staggering numbers, the average salary for a Women's Super League player hovers around £30,000 annually – one-hundredth of what their male counterparts earn in the Premier League. The Lionesses' bonus for winning the Euros was £55,000 per player – compared to the £500,000 that would have been awarded to each male player had they won.

This isn't merely inequality; it's economic irrationality. Women's sports consistently deliver extraordinary returns on investment. Brands that sponsor women's teams and athletes report higher engagement rates and better brand perception. Barclays' sponsorship of the WSL has been described by their marketing directors as "the best ROI we've seen in sports sponsorship."

The opening act is, by financial metrics alone, outperforming the headliner.

The Phantom Audience Fallacy

"There's just not enough interest" remains the tired refrain used to justify everything from pay disparities to minimal media coverage. This circular logic – that women's sports receive less coverage because there's less interest, and there's less interest because there's less coverage – has persisted despite being repeatedly disproven.

The 2019 Women's World Cup drew a global audience of 1.12 billion. The Lionesses' victory parade through London drew crowds that rivaled those of men's championship celebrations. When given the platform, women's sports not only finds an audience – they often expand it, bringing in viewers who had never before considered themselves sports fans.

Yet the BBC's 2021 Sports Personality of the Year award ceremony devoted just 8% of its broadcast to women's sports achievements. Sky Sports dedicated just 6% of its airtime to women's sports in 2020. The phantom audience – the imaginary lack of interest – serves as a convenient myth to maintain the status quo.

The reality? We aren't measuring interest; we're measuring exposure. And exposure remains tightly controlled by gatekeepers still operating on outdated assumptions.

The Separate, But Unequal Playing Field

Perhaps nowhere is the opening act metaphor more literally manifested than in the allocation of resources and facilities. At the 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournament in America, the disparity went viral when Oregon basketball player Sedona Prince posted videos comparing the men's elaborate weight room to the women's – a single rack of dumbbells. The outrage was immediate, but the pattern is familiar to female athletes everywhere.

In the UK, a 2022 survey found that 80% of girls' and women's teams had to share training facilities with men's teams, often receiving less favorable time slots and limited access during peak hours. The message is clear: your needs come second.

Even uniform requirements reinforce this secondary status. Female beach volleyball players competing in bikinis while men wear shorts and tank tops. The Norwegian women's beach handball team fined €1,500 for wearing shorts instead of the required bikini bottoms at the European Championships. The underlying message: your athletic performance isn't enough; your appearance matters more.

These aren't mere inconveniences – they're structural barriers that reinforce a hierarchy, keeping women's sports firmly in the role of supporting act.

When the Opening Act Changes the Main Show

What's particularly fascinating is how women's sports, despite these headwinds, have repeatedly transformed their respective fields. Often, they've done so by rejecting the very frameworks that marginalised them.

Take the Women's Super League (WSL), which has deliberately concentrated on building community engagement and accessibility – creating family-friendly environments with ticket prices that make attendance possible for average fans. As Premier League ticket prices have soared beyond the reach of working-class supporters who once formed football's core audience, the WSL has cultivated a different model – one now being studied by men's leagues struggling with fan engagement.

Or consider how female athletes have revolutionised sports media by building direct relationships with fans through social media, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. England cricket captain Heather Knight has 178,000 Twitter followers – a platform she's used not just for cricket promotion but for challenging inequality. When she highlighted that Lord's wouldn't host any women's Hundred matches in the inaugural competition, the decision was reversed within days.

The "opening act" isn't just performing – it's transforming the very stage it was relegated to.

The Mythology of Merit

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of women's secondary status in sports is how it's often justified through thinly veiled claims about athletic merit. "They're just not as fast/strong/skilled" becomes the catch-all explanation for everything from pay disparities to media neglect.

This framing conveniently ignores how our definitions of athletic achievement have been constructed predominantly around male physiology. Speed and strength are privileged over endurance, strategy, and technique – qualities where female athletes often excel.

It also ignores how sporting rules themselves often reflect gendered assumptions. Until 1960, women were considered too fragile to run more than 800 meters in the Olympics. When these restrictions were finally lifted, women didn't just participate – they redefined the sports. Kathrine Switzer's historic Boston Marathon run in 1967, completed despite an official trying to physically remove her from the course, didn't just break a barrier – it exposed the absurdity of the barrier itself.

The question isn't whether women's sports are "as good as" men's – it's why we continue to measure them against a yardstick designed specifically for a different body type. What if women's football isn't an inferior version of men's football, but rather a different sport with its own tactical nuances and skills?

From Opening Act to Headliner: The Economic Imperative

The reluctance to properly invest in women's sports isn't just a social justice issue – it's increasingly recognised as a major business oversight. According to a 2021 study by Two Circles, women's sports represents a £1 billion commercial opportunity in the UK alone over the next decade.

Investors are beginning to take notice. The WSL's landmark broadcast deal with Sky Sports and the BBC, worth around £8 million per season, represented a watershed moment. Attendance at WSL matches increased by 171% following England's Euros victory.

Major brands are redirecting sponsorship funds, recognising that women's sports offer better engagement metrics and more authentic connections with younger audiences. Visa's commitment to spend as much on women's football as men's by 2023 signals a tectonic shift in how the commercial value of women's sports is being reassessed.

This economic revaluation is perhaps the most powerful force challenging the "opening act" status. When women's sports are finally seen as profit centers rather than corporate social responsibility projects, the entire paradigm shifts.

Beyond the Binary: Reimagining Sports Altogether

What's particularly striking about women's increasing prominence in sport is how it challenges not just gender hierarchies, but the binary framework itself. As conversations around gender identity evolve, women's sports have often led the way in navigating these complex waters.

Cricket's gender-neutral "batter" replacing "batsman." Football embracing expanded definitions of family in its marketing. Athletics federations grappling with how to create fair and inclusive competition categories.

Women's sports aren't just challenging their second-class status – they're challenging us to reimagine sports entirely. What if, instead of an opening act and a main event, we created sporting environments where multiple expressions of athletic excellence could be equally valued?

The Final Whistle

The irony hasn't escaped me that in writing about women's sports being treated as the opening act, I've centered much of this piece around comparisons to men's sports – the very framing I'm critiquing. Perhaps that's the final evolution needed: to discuss women's sports entirely on their own terms, without the constant comparative reference point.

For future generation, I want more than equality – I want a complete reimagining of what sports can be. I want to see the women's match not as a warm-up but simply as the first of two different but equally compelling events. I want a world to be one where "the real match" refers to quality of play, not gender of participants.

The greatest triumph won't be when women's sports receives equal billing – it will be when we no longer think in terms of billing at all. When we've moved beyond the opening act metaphor entirely.

Links to sources and additional reading:

Beyond the Opening Act: How Women's Sports Continues to Rewrite Its Own Narrative