Flavor Flav’s support of the U.S. women’s water polo team has been the feel-good story of Paris 2024. The iconic rapper’s long-term financial investment in the team and in women’s Olympic sports in general shows the power individual celebs have to drive media coverage and sponsorships to help level the playing field.

NBC’s Olympic viewership is way up after a post-COVID slump deterred its Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 audiences — and so are the network’s spirits (and ratings). As Paris 2024 rolls on, the exclusive U.S. Olympic broadcast partner is learning to leverage its revamped linear and digital distribution.

With Paris 2024 in full force, sponsor insight platform SponsorUnited published a study last week on how brands are activating around Paris 2024 and what marketers can learn for the next Games.

Women-centric athleisure brand Athleta is leaning further into its brand identity with its long-running Power of She campaign. In its current form, the messaging has crystallized into centering inspirational Olympic and Paralympic women athletes as brand ambassadors, giving Gen Alpha consumers something to aspire to.

Women-led sports nonprofit Ico For All is fighting to include women in the age-old sport of decathlon. On Wednesday, the org announced it would host the inaugural Women’s Decathlon World Championships in Geneva, Ohio, next month to coincide with the men’s Olympic event in Paris — where women still can’t compete.

After signing recent WNBA and NWSL partnerships, Google wanted to further support athletes in these leagues. So it worked with rights licensing agency OneTeam Partners to form a historic partnership yesterday with the WNBPA, NWSLPA, and USWNTPA that makes Google Pixel the official mobile phone of the unions and the sponsor of marquee union events.

Parity, the sponsorship platform dedicated to connecting brands with women athletes, helped land an especially delicious brand deal last week. Last Wednesday, the Minnesota Pork Board announced that synchronized diving duo Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon are joining Team Pork with the hashtag #CooknBacon.

On Wednesday, SponsorUnited (SU) released its first “State of the Market Marketing Partnerships Report,” offering unparalleled insight into marketing dollars’ reach in various sports markets. The research shows that while the average team sponsorship deal cost $935K in 2023, the dollar goes further in some locales than others.

The sports world is hungry to attract a Gen Z and Gen Alpha audience, and one way to do that may be partnering with Twitch streamers like Kai Cenat. Cenat, who’s already making headway in the NBA and sneaker space, pulls historic streaming numbers from young audiences, offering a whole new demo to women’s sports leagues.

U.S. Olympic rugby (and TikTok) star Ilona Maher and former NCAA swimmer Ann Ragan Kearns launched a skincare line today, called Medalist. The brand’s products are specifically designed for women athletes, which involved rigorous testing from Maher and other athletes across different age groups and sports.

The gender gap in sports viewership and valuations may be closing, but there’s one area of the women’s sports ecosystem where supply is far behind demand: merchandise. On Wednesday, payment network Klarna and fan intelligence company Sports Innovation Lab (SIL) estimated the value of the women’s sports merch market at $4B.

Tech entrepreneur and investor Alexis Ohanian — who co-founded Reddit and is married to Serena Williams — shared further details with Front Office Sports on the 776 Invitational, a pro women’s track and field event offering record prize money.