Despite its popularity, football is a sport drenched in violent masculinity (with domestic violence rates rising by 10 percent on NFL game days). During this Sunday’s Super Bowl, Nike put power back into women’s hands with an ad showing women’s sports stars like Caitlin Clark and Sha’Carri Richardson breaking past barriers to win.
The minute-long ad, titled “So Win,” features black-and-white shots of women athletes shooting three-pointers and running across the finish line. It brings together huge sports names, including star basketball players Clark, Sabrina Ionescu and A’ja Wilson, Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles, sprinter Richardson and soccer player Sophia Wilson.
A voiceover from Grammy-winning rapper Doechii echoes frequent limitations leveled at women in sports and in life (“You can’t be demanding,” “You can’t dominate,” “You can’t be emotional”) before urging women, “Whatever you do, you can’t win … So win.”
With its long list of adjectives, the ad calls attention to qualities like aggression and ambition that sports media tends to celebrate in men athletes but discourage in women. In the middle of the Eagles vs. Chiefs Super Bowl game, “So Win” encouraged women to take control not just on the playing field but in the narratives that surround women in traditionally male-dominated fields, such as sports.
Once neglected by sports fans, women’s sports, particularly basketball, have seen a rise in viewership thanks to new superstars like Clark. Last year, her senior year at the University of Iowa, the women’s championship game had more TV viewers than the men’s game for the first time ever. But women athletes still face sexist comments and media censorship at a rate that men in sports can’t even imagine, with male sports commentators harshly judging Angel Reese in 2023 for playfully taunting the opposite team—a move that flies under the radar in men’s sports.
Sports bars—another anchor of toxic masculinity—are also slowly beginning to change. In 2022, former chef Jenny Nguyen opened The Sports Bra, the U.S.’ first bar showing only women’s sports, in Portland, Ore. The bar celebrates women athletes while creating a supportive environment for fans to cheer for women’s sports. Another women’s sports bar is set to open in Austin in March, suggesting that businesses are finally finding it lucrative to cater to women’s sports fans, an oft-forgotten part of the market.
In a Nike announcement, Ionescu said, “Women’s sport isn’t the future, it’s right now. We’re seeing it in packed arenas, in TV ratings, in the way people are showing up for the game like never before. Commanding attention isn’t about being the loudest in the room. It’s about making sure that when you step up, everyone takes notice.”
