Just Women's Sports' Haley Rosen on the Need To Keep Fans Connected as Momentum Grows

The founder/CEO says new app combines JWS content and scoreboard with real-time stats and analytics

\Women's sports is beyond the having a moment stage, but issues like how Game 6 of the WNBA Finals was handled last week shows there is still work to be done. Because of scheduling conflicts, the game was played at 12:30 in the afternoon in Atlanta, but, thankfully, more than 17,000 fans turned up despite a less-than-ideal start time for a game of such importance. That shuffling of Game 6 demonstrates why Just Women's Sports (JWS), a website and now an app dedicated to serving the women's-sports fan, is increasingly important, giving fans a dedicated home for live scores, schedules, stats, and original editorial and video coverage.

Last month, JWS launched a new mobile app, which was built on technology brought in-house following the acquisition of Victra Sports, a women's-sports-technology company founded by Haro Trenkler and Anna Malepeai. JWS now reaches more than 115 million people each month across its digital and social platforms, with an owned audience of more than 6 million followers. The move takes the JWS app beyond aggregating information already available elsewhere. It combines JWS's own content and scoreboard with real-time statistics and analytics, addressing a longstanding gap in how fans are able to follow and understand the games.

Just Women's founder/CEO Sports Haley Rosen notes that there has been a lot of progress in getting women's sports on television but watching a game is just one part of being a fan. You also want to know when your team plays next, check a score, understand how a player is performing, and follow the stories around the league.

Just Women's Sports' Haley Rosen says the new app engages with fans in new ways. Those are things we take for granted in men's sports, she continues. In women's sports, that experience is still too fragmented, and that becomes important when your interests cross leagues and countries. A soccer fan's interest doesn't necessarily stop with the NWSL.

We need to make it easier to stay connected to the sport, she says, and that's what we're building with the app. We're bringing scores, schedules, statistics, and our coverage together, with the ability to follow specific teams and leagues and customize notifications. Victra's technology gives us the foundation, and JWS brings the content and an audience of more than 115 million people each month. We see it as our job to help onboard the next 10 million women's-sports fans. Making the experience easy and useful is a big part of that.

JWS wanted to build an app for a long time, Rosen says, because it was a critical gap in the way it served fans. Having gotten to know Trenkler and Malepeai and, more important, to like what they had built at Victra, she decided the acquisition made a lot of sense to raise some capital and invest in the capabilities of the JWS team.

They understood the audience and had developed technology specifically for women's sports, she explains. We already have a strong editorial operation, original shows, and a large social presence, and the app adds a different kind of value: the ability to open your phone, check a score, look at statistics, and follow your favorite teams, alongside our coverage. It gives people another reason to use JWS every day.

A key differentiator at JWS is its commitment to covering women's sports with a dedicated original-content team that provides the resources needed to connect with fans and also build relationships with players, teams, and leagues.

You need to show up consistently, know the leagues and athletes, and give fans coverage that helps them understand what's happening and why it matters, Rosen says. It also means covering the whole picture: there are incredible performances and exciting moments, but there are also injuries, tough losses, and decisions that deserve scrutiny. Honest coverage makes room for all of that. Fans want to debate a game, question a decision, and hear an informed perspective. That's part of being a sports fan, and there's real value in journalists who know how to bring context. We want to make it easy and fun to follow women's sports, and coverage people trust is central to that.

The good news is that the women's-sports industry continues to grow and more brands are showing up with sponsorship dollars and more financial investments are being made, which help improve the quality of play, the fan experience, and, of course, the financial stability of players and coaches.

A few years ago, many conversations started with having to prove that an audience existed, Rosen notes. We're increasingly having conversations about how to serve that audience and build a business around it. I also think we're seeing what happens when the athletes and competition get real attention. These are the best athletes in the world competing at the highest level. That has always been compelling.

There is more that can be done, she opines, and the new app is designed to take advantage of that. Where I still see a huge opportunity is everything around the games: consistent media coverage, useful digital products, merchandise, and ways for fans to connect year-round. The progress isn't uniform across sports or markets, and we haven't built out all the things that make following men's sports so easy.

I say that with a lot of optimism, she continues. Look at how much women's sports has grown while so much is still being built. But there is some urgency; we need businesses that understand this audience and are committed to serving it every day.

JWS is also giving fans of specific-sports-dedicated ecosystems with their own social channels, editorial voices, programming, and com

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/11/02/haley-rosen-just-womens-sports-...
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