Women’s athletes are finally getting the attention they deserve. The Iowa-South Carolina championship game in the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball tournament had record-breaking viewership, with 18.9 million people tuning in to watch, making it the most-viewed women’s college basketball game in NCAA history and most-viewed college basketball game (men’s or women’s) ever on ESPN platforms.

At Georgetown University, academic prestige and athletic excellence go hand in hand. Knowing this, I wonder if the growth of women’s college athletics at large has made an impact on athletics on the Hilltop.

I believe that Georgetown has worked hard to support women’s athletics. The university hosted many volleyball and basketball games this year, often promoted with giveaways such as t-shirts, or had a theme like many of the men’s games. Georgetown was also able to have a women’s basketball game hosted at Capital One Arena, where the men’s team plays. 

The women’s game at Capital One was exciting, but led me to wonder: Why don’t the women play there all the time? Why is it limited to the men’s team? While the games in the McDonough Arena are fun and easier to get to, I believe that the women’s team deserves the chance to play at a larger stadium like Capital One, and would have no problem filling as many seats as the men’s basketball team. This is especially true considering their amazing run at the 2024 Big East women’s basketball tournament, where they qualified for the finals for the first time in program history.

Aside from the sports games themselves, Georgetown also hosted a Strong Girls United event, allowing student-athletes to meet with young girls in the Washington, D.C. area and get them involved in the mental and physical aspects of different sports. This was the first event that Georgetown organized with this organization, and I found it to be a great success. Not only did it allow young girls to meet and hear from athletes in the position they aspire to be in, but it also connected female student-athletes on campus with each other, working to build community.

In the fall of 2023, the club Hoyos, created by Graceann Bennett (MSB ’23, GRD ’24) and Kelsey Ransom (CAS ’24), was formed — both players on the women’s basketball team — for female student-athletes to grow a campus-wide community through events like monthly meetings open to all female student-athletes, as well as encourage female student-athletes to attend sit-ins regarding the Fair Play for Women Act, to name a few. They also work closely with an organization called Voice in Sport, which works with female athletes to advocate for full equality between women’s and men’s sports.

These are only the first steps toward true equality between male and female athletics on campus. The women’s teams at Georgetown are consistently performing at a high level and deserve the same amount of praise, support and acknowledgment from the athletic department as the men’s teams do. It is time for the student body to come together and support female student-athletes and teams — just like they do for men’s teams. The women’s teams deserve to be treated with the same respect as the men’s teams on campus, and Georgetown should continue to take the necessary steps in order to truly reach equality between men’s and women’s sports.

Ashley Kennedy is a sophomore in the School of Health. This is the fourth installment of her column “Athlete’s Corner.”