Coronado resident Lisa Lamb is a big sports fan — all sports, across the board. She loves to read about sports, but she had a really hard time finding good coverage of women’s sports.
For example, she struggled to find news stories on the San Diego State University girls basketball team, or the San Diego Waves soccer team.
“I can consume as much men’s sports coverage news as I want, but I couldn’t find any coverage for women,” said Lamb. “I sent some strongly-worded emails to sports editors, just asking, ‘hey, where’s the coverage?’ and I didn’t get much of a response.”
Turns out, the arena of women’s sports media coverage is a big news desert. Lamb learned that national coverage for women’s athletics is shockingly low, less than 15% overall, according to the Sports Business Journal.
So Lamb decided to do something about it. If no one was going to write stories about women’s sports, she would.
“I just said, I’ll start writing the stories that I want to read, so I started writing for The Coronado Times,” said Lamb. “I covered girls tennis, girls volleyball, and girls basketball, all for Coronado High School.”
It was then that she realized she wanted to take it to the next level.
About a year ago, Lamb started an email newsletter that went out twice a week, covering local women’s sports in San Diego. And Her Sports was born.
It didn’t take long before Her Sports evolved into a multi-channel media outlet, billing itself as “the voice of women’s sports in San Diego.” There’s a website, email newsletter, a podcast and channels on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Her Sports covers women’s sports across the county and profiles everyone from Lauren Wilson, an Olympic hopeful sailor from Coronado, surfer Alyssa Spencer, and Olympian track star Jackie Thompson.
And she took on a co-founder, former professional athlete Jourdan Ziff.
“I came at this from a perspective of a fan who just really wanted to read more,” said Lamb. “But my cofounder was a Division 1 soccer player, who played professionally overseas for years. She comes at this work from the perspective of an athlete and player who saw that all of her hard work would often go unrecognized.”
Ziff shares Lamb’s vision for broadening the reach of women’s sports media coverage.
“Their stories deserve a bigger stage,” said Ziff on the Her Sports website. “With Her Sports, I wanted to create a platform that not only amplifies their voices but also builds a connected community of fans, athletes, and organizations who value and support women in sports.”
So far, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Lamb says she gets emails from athletes, coaches and fans who are excited to see female athletes in the spotlight.
“The most rewarding thing is the deep appreciation for the work that we’re doing, and this includes both collegiate and pro athletes,” she said. “They recognize that they have not been covered in the types of ways men’s sports have.”
According to Lamb, women’s sports — in general — are fundamentally under-resourced and under-marketed. This generates a never-ending cycle where dismal coverage leads to a lack of involvement from fans, mainly because no one knows what’s going on. The coaches see this first-hand.
“The coaches know how hard the athletes are working, and when you come to a press conference and there’s no press, that’s really hard,” said Lamb. “The coaches are so grateful and appreciative that we’re here.”
But the growth hasn’t come without challenges. First of all, they had to figure out how to get people to cover all these sporting events around town. The answer? Interns.
“So the interns are out writing, taking photos, writing recaps, and writing profiles,” said Lamb. “And the fact that they want to intern with us and are so committed and motivated and excited tells me there’s a hunger to report and share the news.”
It’s also a lot work to get subscribers and find sponsors. After all, the dream is to grow their reach.
“Her Sports San Diego is hyperlocal, but our dream is to be in all the metropolitan markets. So we want Her Sports L.A., Her Sports Chicago, Her Sports D.C,” said Lamb.
Lamb hopes that Her Sports will continue to break barriers, featuring original content that’s women-focused and women-driven.
“I think sometimes it’s just having the orientation to notice that there’s a gap,” said Lamb. “And I think as women, we tend to see that.”
