Chicago is a world-class sports town, home to some of the most storied and successful franchises.
But for too long, the attention and funding of the sports cultural economy — advertisers, investors, sponsors and other partners — have overlooked the abundant opportunities in women’s professional sports. Luckily this is beginning to change in a powerful way.
Sadly, however, when it comes to the investment of sports betting companies in Chicago, this is not true, and the failure is glaring. When the state of Illinois legalized sports betting over four years ago, large national companies like FanDuel, BetMGM and Caesars could barely wait to invest hundreds of millions of dollars with the major professional sports teams in Chicago.
Look, for example, at the North Side, where DraftKings inked an eye-popping 10-year, $100 million deal with the Cubs. This is just a drop in the bucket for these companies. FanDuel has a substantial partnership with the Bulls and Blackhawks, BetRivers with the Chicago Bears and Caesars with the White Sox. Meanwhile, they invest nothing in women’s professional sports teams in Chicago.
The assumption is these companies don’t value women’s professional sports. While that may not be true, they don’t have the record to prove they do care about women’s teams, including the Chicago Sky, in my district.
If we’re going to continue to be a world-class sports town, we need these companies to support the Sky and other women’s teams to match the undeniable momentum these teams are generating right now.
The NCAA women’s championship capped a season of record-breaking moments, with an average 18.7 million viewers, according to ESPN. The game was the most-watched basketball game — whether college or professional, men’s or women’s — in five years, the network said.
While the fans are clearly paying attention, the sports betting companies aren’t playing along. The highlights, the headlines are there. Where is the economic heft that should follow suit? When will companies like FanDuel, DraftKings and Bally’s recognize the value of Chicago’s women’s sports teams by creating marketing partnerships comparable to the men’s teams?
Data from the Sports Handle publication shows that of the roughly 19 sports betting companies operating in the U.S., only three of those companies partner with only four WNBA teams, while the rest of the companies’ attention and money is spent on men’s professional teams.
When my fellow lawmakers, including members of the House Democratic Women’s Caucus, voted four years ago to legalize sports betting for professional sports teams in Illinois, we could never imagine that the largest companies in the business would choose to ignore investments in women’s sports. I recognize it’s not my role to tell private companies how to invest their money, but it is our collective responsibility to call those companies out when their decisions are so plainly inequitable.
For women’s professional sports to rise to the level commensurate with the stature of its stars, we have to do better.
We must address why the inequities keep growing even as women’s sports become more popular and mainstream. How many more records must be broken by women athletes to earn investment from sports betting companies, advertisers and sponsors to elevate the world of professional women’s sports to the level women deserve, and the level they so rightly have earned?
We can and should do better. It’s not just a bad look, it’s bad business.
Illinois House Rep. Kimberly du Buclet represents the 5th District.