Obviously around the world, the World Cup for men is the highest honor. There’s not a lot of other sports that come close, though regionally, there may be other winners like the NBA, or NFL in the US, or cricket in some places.
For women, what is the most prestigious and/or popular athletic achievement they can attain? Is it women’s World Cup? Maybe one of the Olympic sports? A tennis Grand Slam?
In the US, it seems that we cannot get excited over women’s sports unless its the World Cup. Tennis does get some views on cable, but its not really talked about; people seem to talk about the Williams sisters as people more than their game. The WNBA is a pale imitation of the NBA, and there’s no women’s NFL. Softball maybe, but the shine has been off that a little since its out of the Olympics. And while I know we have a pretty good women’s hockey team in the Olympics, there’s no non-Olympic women’s hockey that I can watch
What’s the highest sporting achievement for women, either individually or as a team?
In the U.S., probably Olympic gymnastics. Used to be Olympic figure skating, but that didn’t seem as popular (or hyped, if you prefer) this last time around; maybe we just didn’t have a strong contender.
You’re mixing team sports and individual sports. I think you’ll get very different answers for each.
That’s ok, people are free to list them separately.
In the US for team sports it would likely be the Olympic Hockey or Basketball, or World Cup Soccer.
For individual events Olympic Women’s all around gymnastics, or the US Open or Wimbledon titles. Tennis is much more popular than you give it credit for.
Olympic and World Cups happen every 4 years, while Tennis happens every year. I’d give tennis the nod because of that.
Agreed. I think women’s tennis is far and away the most popular in terms of eyeballs and revenue. I believe all the top five women athletes by income are tennis players. The marquee names will outdraw comparable men’s matches in certain circumstances.
After tennis maybe golf and gymnastics.
In terms of seasonal team sports ( i.e. excluding the olympics ) the WNBA/women’s college basketball is probably on top, though it is way, way, way down the list.