Mountain West announces new initiative to promote women’s sports

On Sept. 21, the Mountain West Conference announced a new initiative and social media campaign entitled “Making Her Mark.” Chosen and voted on in August by female student-athletes in the conference, the campaign aims to highlight and empower Mountain West female student-athletes.

The social media hashtag #MakingHerMark will run throughout the 2021-2022 academic year as the Mountain West looks to capitalize on a current wave of higher recognition and viewership of women’s college sports.

Although women’s athletics have not historically garnered the same media coverage as men’s competitions, the conference told The Statesman its own Mountain West Network has seen viewership at an all-time high through 2020 and 2021.

Similar to the Mountain West, ESPN has also reported that women’s athletics, and college com-petitions in particular, have seen viewership rising significantly this year.

According to ESPN, the Women’s College World Series viewership was up over 10% for the 17-game tournament compared to 2019. The Women’s Final Four viewership was also up 14% from 2019.

Two Utah State female student-athletes were will-ing to share their thoughts about the new campaign, and the uptrend in promoting women’s athletics.

“I feel like any action and any effort to increase visibility for women and female athletes is awe-some, and it’s needed,” said Taylor Franson, a senior forward and key contributor for USU’s women’s basketball team. “It means a lot to us female athletes that we get that recognition and that we have the opportunity to promote ourselves and to gain recognition for ourselves.”

“I mean, us women do the same amount of work that men do for their sports, and it’s just super nice to be recognized,” said Tatum Stall, a sophomore outside hitter for USU volleyball.

Although student-athletes within the conference chose the hashtag, there were hashtags some of the Aggies presented that didn’t get chosen.

“Other than getting a little bit sad that my hashtag didn’t get picked up, it is a beautiful hashtag,” Stall said. “It flows really well, it gets to the point, and I’m excited to get to use it and get to see what the Mountain West does with it.”

Another leap in student-athlete recognition comes from a recent change in NCAA policy that allows NCAA athletes to profit from endorsements from their name, image and likeness from sponsors out-side the university.

This opens the door for an increase in sponsor-ships for female student-athletes nation-wide. Stall confirmed these thoughts.

“I’ve also seen girls in our conference like the Cavinder twins [a basketball duo from Fresno State] that have half a million followers on Instagram, and they’re building a fantastic name for themselves, which is amazing,” Stall said. “Girls are just climbing to the top, and the NIL just creates more opportunities for women to get their name out there.”