“Nobody cares about women’s sports.”

It’s the sentence that echoed through my athletic career. It was whispered in middle school gyms when our basketball games got bumped to Thursdays so the boys could have the “real” Friday night lights. We felt it in college stadiums where my NCAA Division I teammates and I played to half-empty bleachers while the men’s games sold out.

For decades, the prevailing narrative has been that women’s sports are less competitive, entertaining and profitable than men’s. Yet, as every female athlete and fan knows, the problem has never been the game or athletes themselves, but the stories we’ve told about them.

The turning point came in 2021, when a video from the NCAA Women’s March Madness tournament went viral. The footage, viewed more than 12 million times, exposed the stark disparities between the women’s and men’s weight rooms, meals and amenities. The public outcry was widespread, prompting the NCAA to conduct a Gender Equity Review.

The report led to overdue reforms, including the expansion of the women’s tournament, an upgrade in branding and a 300% increase in streaming coverage for future tournaments. For the first time since Title IX, we saw a serious reckoning with what equity could look like in women’s sports.

Fast forward a few years, and the momentum is incredible. The “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” t-shirt campaign, launched by TOGETHXR as an act of defiance to the alternative narrative, has become a cultural phenomenon, generating over $6 million in revenue in 2024.

Additionally, Major League Baseball recently announced its first investment in women’s softball, and high-profile athletes such as Patrick Mahomes are financially investing in women’s leagues and publicly advocating for their growth. “We all need to keep investing in the women’s game… It’s the future,” Mahomes said.

At the collegiate level, Texas Tech made headlines by offering a $1 million contract to a star softball pitcher who is currently leading the team to its first Women’s College World Series championship game. The contract is the highest in the sport by nearly $800,000.

Meanwhile, basketball phenoms Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have become household names, drawing record-breaking crowds and television audiences.

Again, the problem was never the athletes. It was our failure to believe that if we invest in women, if we give them our platforms, resources, and trust, they’ll deliver.

Church, does that sound familiar?

You may already be comfortable with the idea of women in the pulpit. Many have gone before me, fighting for a seat at the table long before I arrived. 

But as someone new to this team, who has recently traded a jersey for a stole, I have to ask: Are we intentionally (re)shaping the ecclesial and organizational structures of our congregations to make space for women to lead authentically as themselves?

If a woman were called to serve as your senior pastor tomorrow, would your church be prepared to receive her leadership on her own terms? Or would there be an implicit expectation that she conform to the patterns and precedents established by men before her? I’d like to imagine the churches with women in leadership know what I mean by this.

For those who don’t, imagine this: a woman steps into the senior pastor role tomorrow. She shifts the budget to prioritize children’s ministries. She retires the masculine-heavy hymns and brings new rhythms to worship. She rebrands the church, letting go of that tired old logo.

Would you be ready to follow? Would you trust her wisdom, experience and calling, even if it means letting go of what’s always been?

According to a PRRI survey, only four in ten churchgoers say they wish their church had more women in leadership positions. But I’m hoping those numbers ignite us more than discourage us. Because most of us have never seen what happens when women are truly given the platform to preach, lead and shape the life of the church.

The sports world learned this lesson the hard way. For years, a false narrative that women could never attract or be worthy of the audience and funding men have received loomed over the industry. It kept leagues, institutions and athletes from millions, even billions, of dollars.

But when equity suddenly mattered more than equality, the world showed up. New audiences and fresh energy transformed the industry, and the same can be true for the church.

We are standing at a crossroads. In an era of declining attendance, economic uncertainty, political division and artificial intelligence threatening the value of creativity and wisdom, there is ample potential (and a pressing need) to unleash the gifts, perspectives, and leadership that can revitalize and heal our churches and Christian witness.

Like Mary Magdalene, the first preacher of resurrection, women have always been ready to carry the good news. Are we ready to listen?

So let’s build theological weight rooms and homiletical stadiums that are not just big enough for women’s presence, but designed for their strengths. Let’s tailgate in the parking lot of possibility as people who are willing to bet on what God is doing through a woman’s life.

And you know what? Let’s get freaking loud. Let’s show the world we are serious about building a church that reflects the full image of God.

When we do this, get ready to welcome the crowds and to feed the spiritually hungry. Be prepared for the pews to fill with people who didn’t know how much they needed to hear a woman preach, until they did. Because in a world finally seeing the benefit of investing in the voices and visions of women, I refuse to keep repeating the old line that nobody will pay attention.

I recently created t-shirts that say “Everyone Listens to Women Preach.” Because if we can speak viewership numbers and financial success over the sports industry, surely we can speak abundance and new life over the kingdom of God.

I believe if the world is ready for women to take over on the field and the court, then it’s ready for them to take over in the pulpit, too.

And I’m willing to bet the church will rise because of it.

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Pastoral resident at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, and co-founder of Christian Athlete Circles.