The popularity of women’s basketball has snowballed across the United States in recent years. The 2024 NCAA women’s national championship game was the most-watched college or professional basketball game since 2019, and the WNBA is currently on pace to break records in ratings and attendance this season.
But Portland’s high school girls basketball players say they’re not feeling that love.
Players in several of the nine girls basketball programs that comprise the Portland Interscholastic League say they have felt neglected by both fellow students and even school administrators. While the lack of backing for women’s basketball has long been an issue, some players and experts hope that the increasing popularity at the professional and collegiate levels will raise the profile of high school basketball. However, students say that they still need more support.
Earlier this year, Cleveland High School students watched their varsity boys basketball team take on Grant High School, but the majority of spectators left before the girls team played its match against the Generals that same night, the players wrote on Instagram. Some of the comments on the posts were misogynistic, Cleveland’s student-run newspaper, The Clarion, reported. The student newspaper reported in February that the school’s administration responded by banning some of those commenters from attending all sporting events for the rest of the school year.
The incident sparked a discussion among student-athletes and faculty members across the league regarding support for girls programs.
Ida B. Wells High School sophomore Lauren Devlin, who played girls basketball this school year, believes the disparities are evident.
“There is a clear drop in engagement,” Devlin said. “The whole gym was packed for the boys’ senior night, while a week earlier, we had our senior night, and not even a third (as many) students showed up for our game.”
Benson Polytechnic High School senior Trinity Alex, who played in the Oregon School Activities Association’s Class 6A girls basketball state championship game this past winter, expressed similar sentiments.
“Student sections are definitely questionable at our home games,” she said.
Despite the increasing popularity of women’s sports, viewership is still far behind men’s sports. A 2024 study by researchers at Mississippi State and Ohio State universities found that about half of American adults say they’ve watched women’s sports in the last year, but that women’s sports were “typically only a small fraction” of their sports diet.
Former Oregon State Beavers women’s basketball player Missy Smith thinks that student-athletes at all levels are benefiting from the increased visibility at the elite level, however.
Smith, the assistant executive director at the Oregon School Activities Association and founder of the Oregon Girls Sports Leadership Summit, said her father, for example, now prefers to watch the WNBA over the NBA.
“This is a huge switch for him. He thinks the women’s game is better,” Smith said. “This type of culture shift is happening all the way down to the high school level.”
However, Smith said it will take time to grow attendance at high school girls basketball games. It can be challenging when girls and boys teams play on the same nights in different locations, she said. School activities, community outreach, and half-time events can help promote the games, she added.
Ida B. Wells girls varsity basketball coach Glen Coblens sees room for improvement but highlights the consistent support his team receives.
“I think we can always do more, but at the end of the day, you have to have people who want to come, and our community has always been very supportive,” he said.
Although February’s Class 6A boys basketball state title game between Roosevelt and Central Catholic drew a sellout crowd at the 4,852-seat Chiles Center at the University of Portland, only 1,591 people showed up to see the Techsters and South Medford girls play hours later.
Lincoln senior Ella Greene has also noticed a decline in school spirit at her games.
“There were some instances where we had a home game and the boys team had an away game at the same time, and students went to the boys away game rather than ours, which was frustrating to see,” she said.
Another Lincoln student, senior WeiLai Nathan, frequently attends her school’s boys and girls varsity basketball games. She says that she has noticed a clear difference in the atmosphere between the two.
“I think there is a lot more energy at the boys games,” Nathan said. She added that she has seen less promotion on social media by student leaders for girls basketball games compared to boys basketball games.
Franklin senior Charlotte Storrs believes that school staff treats her squad well but said it sometimes feels like the students would “rather do anything else than come to our games.”
Others say schools are failing to adequately support the girls teams.
Roosevelt senior Josie Doughty is disappointed in the lack of attention the school administration gives her team. She feels that school administrators make announcements encouraging students to watch the boys play but not the girls.
Roosevelt administrators did not respond to a request for comment about that concern.
“It’s two entirely different worlds,” she said. “The way people talk about the teams and advertise about the teams just kinda reinforces the same attitudes. When you don’t have people supporting a girls program, it’s hard to build a strong one because players don’t feel comfortable or happy on a team that people are constantly talking poorly about.”
Despite these challenges, Doughty is still excited for the future of girls basketball in the Beaver State, which has produced standout players like ESPN’s No. 2 recruit in the class of 2025, Jazzy Davidson, former Oregon State star Donovyn Hunter and Oregon Ducks guard Sofia Bell just in the past couple of years.
“We have a great thing going on in girls sports at Roosevelt right now,” Doughty said. “Once people realize that and show up, these teams will only get stronger.”
Youth Voices reporter Mo Damtew is a rising junior at Lincoln High School. He is a graduate of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s High School Journalism Institute, contributes to his school newspaper, The Cardinal Times, and is a columnist for Oregon Sports News. He plans to major in journalism at a four-year university.