iHeartMedia, the leading audio media company in the USA, Humanized Radio Audio (IHRT), in collaboration with Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, presents the Women’s Sports Audio Network (WSAN), an innovative platform created expressively aimed at women’s sports. This collaboration means not only promoting the awareness and reporting of the stories of women athletes in the media but also creating a comprehensive audio product with engaging content across multiple channels, including broadcast radio, podcasts, and streaming services.
The emergence of WSAN at this particular stage coincides with the fact that this year, women's sports are forecasted to become a $1 billion industry, which is a remarkable growth considering previous years, which is a big raise from their earlier performance. Growing at this rate, women's sports, have not been given fairly enough media coverage as men's sports. What we aim for is to fill this gap with various types of programs from daily sports reporting to athlete spotlights, all over the air on iHeartMedia's multi-platform network.
The impact of iHeartMedia's announcement of WSAN on stock performance and the financial health of the company is what investors and market experts are currently looking into. The volatility in iHeartMedia's stock price is apparent, with a 53.25% decline in the 1-year price total return as of early 2024. This extent of price volatility may be a crucial issue for investors who are interested in maintaining their portfolio stability. Moreover, the company is not expected to make a profit this year and a negative price-to-earnings ratio of -1.06 indicates that iHeartMedia may be experiencing some difficulties in finance. Nevertheless, iHeartMedia's liquid assets are more than its short-term obligations, which is the basis for their operations' flexibility.
The network is already planning to showcase top sports media personalities like Sarah Spain and WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes; they expect to announce more names soon. Through the airing of programs all year long, WSAN intends to fill the need in the market, bringing up a similar station that will be covering various sports in a variety of ways.
This initiative demonstrates iHeartMedia's recognition of the need to ensure equal coverage and accessibility as a women's sports advancement catalyst. The Heartsports network by the company will be extended to all 500+ radio stations across the nation in combination with women sports dedicated segments broadcasting.
The alliance between iHeartMedia and Deep Blue steered by the industry experts, Laura Correnti and Sue Bird, is a huge move in regards to raising the profile of the female's sports. It also empowers brands to build connections with a new market segment, the use of iHeartMedia’s extensive audience reach to strengthen the image of female athletes, thus communicating their exciting stories.
Deep Blue's recent collaboration with Axios on a series that highlighted the business of women's sports gives a clear indication of the growing interest and the economic gains that can be made from the women's sports sector. The announcement of WSAN was made at the Business of Women's Sports Summit in the Big Apple city, showing that within minutes, the network is ready to take women's sports coverage to another level.
