By Rory Carroll and Amy Tennery
PARIS (Reuters) - American women from Simone Biles to Katie Ledecky and Sha'Carri Richardson will dominate the spotlight in Paris as the explosion in popularity of women's sports in the United States makes its way to the Olympic stage, experts said.
Those athletes are among the women featured prominently in ads for the Games on NBC, as female fans are being drawn to international sport's biggest event like never before.
Of those seeking out Olympic news online in the U.S., 56% are women while 44% are men, according to David Steinberg, CEO of marketing technology company Zeta Global.
That could help reverse a dismal trend for broadcasters, after U.S. viewership for the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 plunged to about half the audience of the London Games in 2012.
Caitlin Clark's brilliance this year led the women's college basketball tournament to eclipse the men's in TV ratings for the first time, dominating headlines.
"It's like a 100-year overnight success story," Steinberg said. "(Women's sport) has been around for a very long time but is finally getting its moment."
NBCUniversal said it would modernise its Olympic coverage for Paris, which includes adding elements of pop culture and bringing in social media influencers to attract more women and younger viewers.
More than half the network's primetime Olympic coverage will be dedicated to women's events, the company said.
NBCU has also adopted a different strategy to market the Olympics by having celebrities meet athletes, exemplified by R&B singer SZA joining Biles in the gym in a promotional video.
"What we uncovered through that exercise is there are a huge number of celebrities who are big fans in particular of female athletes, and they love the Olympics," said Jenny Storms, NBCU's chief marketing officer for entertainment and sports.
'ROCK STARS'
Americans love a winner and the women of Team USA have been leading on that front, earning 66 of the United States' 113 total medals in Tokyo and winning more medals than the men in Rio and London as well.
Paris marks the fourth consecutive Games to which the U.S. will send more women than men, with 314 female athletes in the team compared with 278 male.
Taking advantage of that pool of talent is another matter.
Kate Johnson, a trustee at the Women's Sports Foundation and Olympic rowing silver medallist in 2004, said that women have not had their stories told properly.
"NBC has got to get this right, they need to pick up on the competitive storylines with women's sports," said Johnson.
She pointed to the success of the WNBA this season, where Indiana Fever point guard Clark's fierce rivalries with her fellow rookies have driven television ratings sky-high, as evidence that audiences crave raw competition over puff-pieces.
"The cultural zeitgeist has now caught up to the fact that women's sports are there, it's amazing. But the truth is the U.S. women's Olympic team, for example, has won more medals than the men comparatively for years now," she told Reuters.
"Those stories weren't getting told that well; this summer I expect that they will... And it's about freaking time because they've always been rock stars."
One of those rock stars, Laurie Hernandez, who won gold with the U.S. gymnastics team alongside Biles in Rio in 2016, praised the trailblazers.
"Tennis and soccer paved the way for women's equality in sports," said Hernandez, now a broadcaster with NBC and ambassador for hospitality company On Location.
"I'm giddy to know that the coverage is happening."
Logan "Logistx" Edra, a 21-year-old American B-Girl looking to dance her way to the top of the podium in breaking, said the Olympics could provide young girls with a vision of the future.
"Any type of representation is going to help people see what is possible," she said.
"Me seeing these women shows me what is possible."
(Reporting by Rory Carroll and Amy Tennery, Additional reporting by Sheila Dang; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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