Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Wednesday, October 29th.

Today on Forbes, America's Most Powerful Women in Sports.

During September's U.S. Open tennis tournament, ESPN cut away from a marquee match between

two-time champion Naomi Osaka and the 2023 title holder, Cocoa,

to air an ad for other sports coverage on the channel. The athletes in the spot?

Caitlin Clark and several of her WNBA peers. The moment served as a powerful reminder that women's

influence in American sports has gotten too big to

ignore. The money has been flowing into the sector for the past few years now. In 2024,

revenue for all of women's sports surpassed $1 billion for the first time, and it is projected

to hit $2.5 billion by 2030. According to a recent report by McKinsey,

revenue from women's sports is growing at more than four times the rate of men's sports.

Meanwhile, the WNBA's 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal will begin next year,

quadrupling the value of the league's

previous contracts and virtually ensuring that viewership records will continue to be broken.

And women are leading the way. In women's and men's leagues, as well as in the owner's box,

in the front office, in the media, and of course, on the playing fields.

The 25 women on Forbes's 2025 ranking of America's most powerful women in sports have

unprecedented influence on the country's most popular sports and are among the highest-earning

athletes, including number 13, golf, and coaches, South Carolina Gamecocks coach, Don Staley, is number 20.

At number one is Gail Benson, the owner of the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans.

She made history in 2018 when she became the only woman to own both an NFL and NBA franchise, taking control of the

Saints and the Pelicans after the death of her husband, Tom. The two teams now carry a combined

...