Bleacher Report Aims to Build Women’s Sports ‘Destination’ Online

Posted by Admin January 16, 2025 Sports

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Bleacher Report will unveil a women’s sports-focused social brand, B/R W, on Thursday, a day before 3-on-3 women’s basketball league Unrivaled makes its debut on TNT Sports’ networks.

The accounts on Instagram, YouTube and—at least for now—TikTok will focus on the sports TNT Sports airs, including women’s basketball, soccer and tennis. Bleacher Report is building on the following it has amassed for its HighlightHER pages, which have more than 500,000 followers across those three platforms.

“Our goal is to create the preeminent social destination for women’s sports,” Bleacher Report VP and head of programming strategy Katie Arkins said in a video interview. “And it’s trying to use that lens to figure out … ‘What is missing from being a women’s sports fan?’”

Female athletes now often best their male counterparts in social following. And women’s sports have become an increasingly common topic of conversation online, often thanks to those app-savvy female players themselves. The dialogue, though, isn’t always civil.

While four of the 10 most searched athletes in the U.S. last year were women, according to Google, boxer Imane Khelif was at the top of the list globally after the Olympic gold medalist endured what her lawyer described as a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” of attacks, largely lobbed online.

Social media has been a boon for women’s sports, and also often a burden for its most visible faces.

So where does that leave the media brands that generally serve as the digital locus of sports conversation?

Fans got a preview of what’s in store on Bleacher Report’s main accounts earlier this week, as the content team captured a number of behind-the-scenes pieces with Unrivaled players. One video—of athletes sharing their celebrity look-alikes—garnered 9 million views on TikTok.

“We know from everything that we’ve done with Bleacher Report … how much followers and fans on social gravitate towards being able to see the personality behind the player,” Arkins said. B/R W plans to use a similar playbook, leveraging the access it has to players and leagues to create clips showing stars’ unseen sides.

Beyond those pieces, B/R W plans to lean into what the company calls “the wave two conversation”—reactions to breaking news, exciting moments and controversial decisions in the form of highlights, memes, quote cards, live chats and everything else Bleacher Report has become known for. B/R W will also have sponsored and branded content, with sponsors at launch including AT&T, Ford, State Farm and Sprite.

“In the women’s sports space, it’s about figuring out the right way to have those conversations where you are treating these incredible athletes as players and creating conversation around their game,” Arkins said.

A dedicated B/R W team plans to generate a forum for lively dialogue without letting personal attacks intrude on platforms where crude or derogatory posts are often just a click away, if that. Malicious attempts at humor could be found in the comment sections under some of the Unrivaled-related videos Bleacher Report posted on TikTok this week, for example.

“One of the things that HighlightHER did best is cultivating a really, really engaged and kind community,” Arkins said. “So one of the things that’s really top of mind is, ‘How do you maintain that and create that spirit of community as we evolve the brand?’”

Then there’s the fact that a women’s sports fan might follow basketball closely but tennis or soccer not at all. Some followers might identify themselves as backers of female athletes generally, while others are diehards for specific sports regardless of gender.

“Part of our challenge is bridging the gap to figure out how you get a WNBA fan to care about U.S. Soccer, or to get a U.S. Soccer fan to care about Roland Garros,” Arkins said.

Bleacher Report is also launching a video podcast, Trophy Room with Candace Parker. Unrivaled stars and Olympians Breanna Stewart, Kahleah Copper and Chelsea Gray will be Parker’s first guests.

“Celebrate her. Lift her up,” Parker says in a video announcing the new brand. “Sure, but don’t leave out the debate. The criticisms, the questions. We can take it.

“Trust me,” Parker adds. “It’s sports.”