TREND #8: Women & Sports: The Revolution Continues
More women become empowered as athletes as the women’s sports economy booms
By Amy Eisinger
Overview
This trend captures a long-overdue cultural and economic reckoning as women’s athletics moves from the margins to the mainstream—reshaping fitness, media, fashion, fandom and business along the way. Around the world, new leagues like the Professional Women’s Hockey League, League One Volleyball and the upcoming Women’s Professional Baseball League are launching alongside bold, culture-forward events such as Athlos in New York City, which turned women’s track and field into a Times Square spectacle complete with instant prize payouts and a Ciara concert. Female fandom is exploding too, visible in the rapid rise of women’s sports bars like The Sports Bra (now franchising nationwide), record-breaking attendance at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup and massive global viewership for women’s cricket in India. At the same time, female athletes are becoming cultural and commercial powerhouses: Coco Gauff co-creating fashion lines, Ilona Maher and Sloane Stephens launching beauty brands, Allyson Felix building a motherhood-centered footwear company, and media platforms like Togethxr rewriting who gets visibility and voice. On the ground, this momentum is changing bodies and behaviors—women are lifting heavier, joining grassroots leagues, filling women-only gyms from Dubai to Shanghai, and embracing strength over thinness as both a physical and political act. Together, these shifts signal a structural change, not a moment: women’s sports are no longer asking for permission, but actively redefining what power, performance and possibility look like—on the field, in culture and across the global wellness economy.
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Meet the Author
Amy Eisinger
LinkedIn | GWS writer page
Writer, Editor & Digital Creator, Well+Good, United States
Amy is a writer, editor and digital creator who covers health and wellness. For the past 15 years, she’s led creative teams at Well+Good, SELF, New York Post and The Messenger, and written for the New York Daily News, The Washington Post, LA Times, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Allure, among others. During her tenure at SELF, the brand earned multiple Webby Awards, MM+M Awards and several ASME nominations and one win. Amy is the author of the Substack Way Beyond Well, and has appeared as a guest on TODAY, Good Day New York, Access Hollywood, KTLA, and numerous podcasts and panels. She was also the host of the Sweat With SELF YouTube series. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with a double major in English and Classical Studies before receiving her MA in Journalism from New York University.
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From the 2026 New York Media Event
Discover the top 10 trends shaping the future of the global wellness economy.
Backed by more than a decade of trusted forecasting from the Global Wellness Summit, this annual report goes beyond trend spotting to deliver expert analysis, real-world implications, and strategic insight for leaders, innovators, and investors. Used worldwide to anticipate what’s next in wellness, this is the definitive guide to the forces that will shape the industry in 2026 and beyond.
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