NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2024 – Yahoo Sports and The Athletic announced a partnership today to create a new home for comprehensive women’s sports coverage.
The destination – a women’s sports hub on the Yahoo Sports website and app – will guide fans to written, audio, and video content produced by Yahoo Sports and The Athletic. The coverage will be free and available globally; a subscription to The Athletic is not required.
Popular shows – including “The Athletic Women’s Basketball Show” and “Full Time with Meg Linehan” – will be available in the hub. The hub will also showcase original reporting from The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig, Sabreena Merchant, Ben Pickman, and Chantel Jennings, as well as Yahoo Sports reporters and analysts Cassandra Negley, Isis “Ice” Young, Henry Bushnell, and more.
The partnership addresses clear, increased demand for women’s sports coverage, particularly across Yahoo Sports platforms. Views of women’s sports articles on Yahoo Sports are up 253% over the last 12 months. In addition, seven of the top 10 most-viewed articles on Yahoo Sports in August were about female athletes.
“This partnership is an exciting and important next step in our ongoing commitment to serving women’s sports fans,” said Ryan Spoon, President of Yahoo Sports. “We are proud to bring The Athletic’s world-class reporting to our platforms and to help millions of fans access extensive and expert women’s sports coverage.”
“The Athletic is the leader for journalism covering women’s sports and Yahoo Sports stands as one of the largest and most influential sports media and fantasy platforms,” said Sebastian Tomich, chief commercial and development officer at The Athletic. “By bringing these two powerhouse brands together, we’re poised to significantly expand the reach of women’s sports coverage and engage a broader audience. This partnership also offers an unparalleled opportunity for sponsors to connect with women’s sports at an industry-leading scale, aligning with the growing momentum and passion for women’s sports.”
The partnership also reflects both companies’ continued investment in women’s sports. In the past year, Yahoo Sports has hired dynamic experts to enhance its coverage, including Ice Young, a former collegiate and professional basketball player, as well as Olympics correspondents Allyson Felix, Kerri Walsh Jennings, Missy Franklin, Katie Hoff, and Shawn Johnson East. The Athletic has one of the largest global sports newsrooms, and one of the biggest, most passionate communities of global sports fans. The Athletic has built a foundation of coverage for fan-favorite women’s sports leagues and teams. In the past year, The Athletic has evolved the breadth and depth of its reporting in focus areas such as professional women’s soccer and basketball, creating further access and attracting even more new readers.
The Yahoo Sports-The Athletic women’s sports hub is available today on the Yahoo Sports website: yahoosports.com/womens-sports. The hub will launch in the Yahoo Sports app in the coming months.
About Yahoo
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About The Athletic
The Athletic, founded in 2016 and acquired by The New York Times in 2022, is the world’s leading direct-to-consumer digital sports media company committed to elevated sports storytelling. The Athletic has the world’s largest sports newsroom, with 500 full-time employees covering more than 250 professional sports and collegiate teams in the US and globally. Through a personalized subscriber experience built around the teams and leagues that fans follow, The Athletic delivers content and insight across a range of formats from written to audio, video and social – delivering powerful stories and smart analysis that bring sports fans closer to the heart of the game. From breaking news and live commentary to deeply reported long reads and exclusive interviews, subscribers rely on The Athletic for every sports story that matters.