Is this the dawn of a new era in women’s sports?

The South Carolina Gamecocks celebrate after beating the Iowa Hawkeyes to win the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball national championship. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images by Cheryl Cooky, Purdue University Though the college career of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark ended with a disappointing loss, the point guard’s record-breaking season helped fuel widespread interest in this year’s NCAA women’s college basketball tournament. The women’s Final Four garnered higher television ratings than the men’s Final Four. Then the women’s basketball championship game between South Carolina and Iowa didn’t just draw in more viewers (18.9 million) than the men’s championship game the following night (14.8 million); it also had more viewers than every World Series game since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series and every NBA Finals game since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals. Does this represent another brief moment in the sun for women’s sports? Or will this shining moment extend far into the future? Since Title IX’s passage in 1972, women’s sports have occasionally experienced big ratings and massive crowds. In 1983, nearly 12 million viewers tuned in as the University of Southern California, led by star forward Cheryl Miller, bested LSU in the basketball championship game. And more than 90,000 fans...