Women In Sports Marketing Blog

Professional Women’s Hockey: A League Positioned for the Modern Media Landscape, a Forbes article written by Marc Berman, is a great example of the use of soft ledes in journalism. The article opens up discussing how sports media is one of the few forms of broadcasting that is still thriving, not quite focusing on the main topic of women’s hockey, but instead keeping the conversation relatively broad in order to draw in the readers attention. 

The author also uses “hard” facts regarding television streaming rates to demonstrate the growth of sports viewership, stating that live sports made up “approximately 37 percent of all broadcast television viewing minutes in fall 2025”, according to Nielsen Data. Along with this, the article mentions The New Moneyball, which reflects on the history of women’s athletics and its route to becoming a billion dollar business. 

The articles nut graph discusses the growth of the PWHL since its creation in 2024, and how the league will benefit from the growing desire for increased sports media coverage, which is also an advantage for the sports networks due to the fact that the PWHL “offers a live competition that aligns with broader efforts to diversify sports portfolios.” (Berman, 2026).

The article also discusses the growing visibility and sponsorships in women’s hockey, due to the growing fan base, using the team’s collaboration with Barbie as an example of commercial partnership. This demonstrates a major advancement in women’s athletics as they continue to defy systematic standards. 

Citations:

Berman, M. (2026, January 8). Professional women’s hockey: A league positioned for the modern media landscape. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcberman1/2026/01/08/professional-womens-hockey-a-league-positioned-for-the-modern-media-landscape/