Nancy Lough (Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education) is the lead author of a new report, DisruptHERS: Driving A New Model for Women's Sport, that was released by the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. Lough is the chief sports management officer of UNLV's Sports Research and Innovation Initiative. She also is the coordinator of the intercollegiate and professional sports management program in the College of Education.
The report discusses how, for decades, scholars and advocates of women’s sport have called for a change in how women’s sport is marketed, sponsored, endorsed, promoted, covered, invested in, capitalized upon, and broadcast. Women’s sport has deserved equal resources, yet has not been provided adequate investment, which is then used as a false narrative depicting women’s sport as not as lucrative, successful, and popular as men’s sport — a classic chicken-egg circular argument. Due to a multitude of factors, unprecedented disruption is occurring in women’s sport, specifically among women athletes. Read about these disruptions and recommendations for accelerating systems change for women’s sport.
