There’s a tremendous and growing interest in women’s sports, and media companies are recognizing that. That’s led to some significant shifts in how many companies approach covering women’s sports. And The Athletic’s recent moves present an interesting look into how one outlet is adapting.
In December, the New York Times-owned company announced promotions for Meg Linehan and Emily Olsen. That move saw Linehan, who had been especially focused on women’s soccer but had also contributed to coverage of a wide range of other women’s sports, move into a role of women’s sports lead.
As per the release, Linehan was tabbed to help deliver “a big-picture, conceptual vision for women’s sports coverage across multiple editorial verticals” while continuing to work on the Full Time newsletter and podcast and writing features across a range of women’s sports. Meanwhile, that announcement also promoted Olsen to global head of women’s soccer “with the goal of telling truly global stories across the women’s game.”
Recently, Olsen and her boss, Laura Williamson (The Athletic UK’s editor-in-chief) spoke to Awful Announcing about these changes
“I think it’s about being intentional about what we want to do and why we want to do it,” Williamson said. “Rather than women’s sport being sort of siloed as this thing on its own, it’s about recognizing its value across all sports.”
A Wasserman-ESPN Research study released in October 2023 estimated women’s sports coverage rose from 4% to 15% of U.S. sports media coverage from 2018 to that year.
Why is that happening? Well, a Monarch Collective report in March estimated women’s sports generated $1.3 billion in commercial revenue in 2024, a 240% bump from four years earlier. That makes a strong case for increased investment in women’s sports coverage.
And there have been many outlets making big women’s sports moves since then. But when it comes to The Athletic’s changes in particular, Williamson told AA their focus is on seeing women’s sports as interconnected, which plays into Linehan’s new role as women’s sports lead.
Williamson said last summer’s Paris Olympics proved an inspiration, and showed the rewards of investing in women’s sports coverage. Those Olympics were part of an incredibly successful 2024 for The Athletic’s women’s sports coverage, which saw their page views for that content rise 224% year-over-year.
“It was really crystallized during the Olympics,” Williamson said. “For the first time in Paris, we covered the Summer Games as an organization [compared to more focused previous Olympics coverage from The Athletic]. And it just naturally fit. Because in half the events, women compete, and they’re given the platform they deserve.”
The Paris Games were only part of that success, though. 2024 also saw a 494% year-over-year jump in average monthly visitors to The Athletic’s WNBA content. They also saw a 325% year-over-year jump for their NWSL coverage.
With that in mind, beyond just adding resources and promotion to their women’s sports coverage, Williamson said the publication’s current shifts are about seeing and emphasizing the connections between these women’s sports. She said that’s also about focusing on covering the different college, pro, and international levels within a sport. Examples of that include their Full Time podcast covering all levels of women’s soccer and their No Offseason podcast covering all levels of women’s basketball.
“It’s just something that we’ve really taken into other sports. Particularly, I’m thinking of women’s soccer and football and women’s basketball and tennis in particular,” Williamson said. “It’s just being really intentional about telling those stories and not seeing it through this sort of siloed lens any more, and putting them on the platform where they deserve to be.”
Williamson said emphasizing connections within an individual sport was behind the company creating this new global head of women’s soccer role for Olsen. And she said another angle was adding more of a U.S. element to their women’s soccer coverage (which had previously had a lot of UK focus), given the stateside audience numbers they’ve seen over the years.
“Firstly, Emily is brilliant at what she does and very knowledgeable about women’s soccer. …So it made sense to shift our coverage to talk to that massive audience that’s hungry for more information and to get to know these incredible stars of the game more and more.”
Williamson said that’s not about pulling back on European coverage, but rather finding ways to relate it to the U.S. audience, and then also adding U.S.-specific stories.
“The idea behind Emily’s appointment was that yes, we’ll cover the Women’s Super League in the UK, cover European women’s soccer, Champions League, and Barcelona in particular, and Lyon. But it’s about pulling it to that U.S. audience and really doubling down on things like the U.S. Women’s National Team, which is just this phenomenon, really.
“The Athletic was born, in terms of football or soccer, from a beat model, team by team. And the U.S. Women’s National Team is absolutely up there amongst our most followed teams. It’s about creating the platform that that the sport and these stars deserve.”
Olsen said even just the creation of her new role indicates the kind of focus and resources The Athletic is putting into women’s soccer.
“It means a lot. I can’t think of many other outlets in the U.S. in particular that have a dedicated role for head of women’s soccer, global women’s soccer as a whole. To be able to help pioneer that is really something that is very meaningful to me, but also hopefully to the company as well, as we look to lead.”
There’s good reason for the company to do that, though. Olsen said their women’s soccer coverage has been a large success for them over the years. And that makes it important for them to keep Linehan involved in soccer coverage, even as she takes on more elsewhere.
“I think about how a lot of people have probably come to The Athletic for women’s soccer, and that’s through Meg Linehan’s reporting,” Olsen said. “She’s done extensive work, she’s been kind of the insider of women’s soccer. For many people, she’s their trusted voice when it comes to knowing about things, whether it’s U.S. national team, global, NWSL, the investigations that she did that helped lead to the Sally Yates report and the uncovering of all the abuse in the NWSL.
“Seeing that and knowing what a large responsibility that comes with that means I see this role as being able to take that and capitalize. Obviously, Meg is in now a more expanded role that oversees women’s sports as a whole. But she’s also going to continue to be that voice of our women’s soccer coverage.”
There is still a strong demand for Linehan’s take, from both readers and Olsen herself.
“I also oversee the newsletter and the podcast, and all the comments are like, ‘I want to know what Meg thinks about this.’ And then I want to know what Meg thinks.”
But with Linehan taking on work in other women’s sports, that meant The Athletic had to also add other resources to keep their women’s soccer coverage strong. Last month, they announced two notable hires there, Tamerra Griffin and Asli Pelit Basker.
Griffin had previously freelanced for the publication since 2023, while Pelit Basker had reported on soccer since 2013 for TRT Sport, USA Today Sports, VICE and Sportico. Olsen says their additions are key to this new global women’s soccer focus, and to continuing to grow their coverage.
“They are just absolute superstars in what they do covering the sport. And in bringing them in, we’ve kind of bolstered our team to be able to take soccer and be able to tell it from multiple different angles.
“When we had Meg and [long-time Athletic writer] Steph [Yang], and kind of the original core of it, we were able to tell stories, but we were kind of blazing a trail in a sense. And so now it’s like, ‘Okay, what’s next?’”
Given the importance of women’s soccer to The Athletic’s women’s sports coverage and to their overall health as a company, Olsen said they can’t rest on their laurels.
“We couldn’t rely just on head forward, head down. We had to expand outward.”
She said the new additions will help them bring different dimensions to their coverage.
“Now it’s about being able to have Tamerra’s excellent storytelling skills, being able to dive deep into who these players are, what the contextual cultural moment is. And Asli Pelit, who spent a lot of time doing the business side, getting to know the owners, hearing that side of the game.
“Then obviously having the commentary from Meg, I just see it as rounding out how we are covering it. And then expanding the global aspect of it just makes it bigger.”
On the global side, that also involves tying in UK-based writers such as Charlotte Harpur and Megan Feringa. Olsen said that’s been a key priority for her in this new role, as those writers have been doing excellent work on women’s soccer, but it hasn’t always been promoted to the publication’s U.S. audience.
“I wanted to make sure that I was able to connect what we were doing in the UK with, at the time, Charlotte Harpur’s great reporting, and then we brought in another wonderful reporter, Meghan Feringa, who just finds phenomenal stories. And to be able to have our desks work together, it just felt silly at the time that they were operating on different planes.”
Olsen said this isn’t about abandoning audiences outside the U.S., either, but rather combining The Athletic’s women’s soccer resources to provide in-depth coverage on many fronts. And she said having writers based in both the UK and the U.S. gives them a major advantage over many other outlets.
“Yes, we’re catering to our large U.S. audience, but it’s not taking the authenticity away from anything that we’re doing,” she said. “Charlotte and Megan and our team over there are able to tell what they’re seeing in front of them and what they’re seeing on the ground. And Asli and Tamara and Meg are able to see what they’re telling on the ground in the U.S., so it’s about having everyone be able to keep that authentic nature about what they’re doing and contribute it to our desk.”
Beyond working with the publication’s writers specifically focused on women’s soccer, Olsen said another part of her new role is being a point of contact for other Athletic writers who might have lines on women’s soccer stories.
“With someone like myself in place, being able to be that kind of person overseeing it all, it allows people that maybe are normally on a men’s soccer beat or who kind of do a little bit of both to actually be able to do it. Before, it was like, ‘Okay, I have this woman’s story and this men’s story,’ and you had to play this kind of silly prioritization game.
“Now, it’s like, ‘Okay, I know who I can go to to ask about how we move this story forward.’ It not only puts dedicated reporters into focusing on women’s soccer, but that allows other reporters to expand to cover all of soccer when necessary.”
Another element is that many women’s soccer stories have significant components in both the U.S. and Europe, especially when it comes to U.S. Women’s National Team players who play for European clubs. And Olsen said the people she works with recognize the importance of those global angles.
“A huge aspect of all of the reporters on my team is that they view women’s soccer from a global perspective,” she said. “They are consuming it. They don’t necessarily come from that beat background of like following one team for one time, with the exception of the U.S. Women’s National Team, obviously.
“But even when you follow the USWNT, because of the makeup of what soccer is, you are following Emily Fox at Arsenal or Catarina Macario at Chelsea or Jaedyn Shaw’s move from San Diego to North Carolina. So I think it’s ingrained in all of our reporters that they cover women’s soccer. And that involves seeing it on a global level and watching the game and how it interacts.”
Of course, it isn’t necessarily easy to do that given how much there is to keep track of. But Olsen thinks that perspective is worthwhile.
“That can be challenging, but it’s also kind of beautiful because it highlights just how interconnected and global it is. And that’s what our audience is interested in, right? They’re interested in how it all connects together. …So it makes it easier that we’re looking at it globally on a day-to-day basis.”
Read on for more on how The Athletic decides what stories to prioritize, and on what it means to Olsen and Williamson to be women in key editorial roles on women’s sports coverage.