Per a press launch issued by GIGA
#1 SPORT FOR OLYMPIC AUDIENCES AND FEMALE FANS FINDS FIELD OF PLAY WITH GLOBAL IMPACT GYMNASTICS ALLIANCE (GIGA)
First ladies’s skilled gymnastics league and media platform creates alternative for athletes submit Olympics and NCAA, prompts pent-up fan demand
June 20, 2024 – Wilton, CT – As the primary ladies’s skilled gymnastics league, the International Affect Gymnastics Alliance (GIGA) envisions a future the place “turning professional” in gymnastics permits athletes to pursue income alternatives on the sphere of play and maintain prolonged aggressive careers nicely past their late teenagers and faculty years.
The three founders, Maura Fox, CEO, Aimee Boorman, Chief of Athletes and Engagement, and LaPrise Williams, Chief of Sports activities Technique and Occasions, are dedicated to utilizing the facility of stay occasions, athlete storytelling and fan-first content material and experiences to achieve new audiences and develop the game at a time when curiosity in ladies’s sports activities is surging.
“Girls’s gymnastics has lengthy been a dominating drive through the summer time Olympics, capturing outsized media protection and main the way in which on fan engagement,” stated Fox. “GIGA is right here to interrupt the 4-year cycle so athletes can translate their expertise and dedication right into a viable profession path and followers can proceed to benefit from the sport they love.”
Regardless of huge development, ladies’s sports activities continues to be an untapped market, and ripe for funding. Quickly rising ladies’s sport league valuations (WNBA, NWSL) and new media rights offers are fueling income. Spectator attendance and TV viewership are breaking information. Throughout all Olympic sports activities, gymnastics is the de facto headliner, with NBC’s Tokyo primetime airing extra hours of ladies’s gymnastics than another sport – males’s or ladies’s. On the faculty stage, ladies’s NCAA gymnastics generates 13 occasions extra income than males’s.
But following a school or Olympic profession, there’s been no approach for feminine gymnasts to earn a dwelling. Identify Picture Likeness (NIL) opens door to new growth – the #1 NIL feminine athlete is an LSU gymnast, who’s additionally #3 of prime 10 athletes general – however and not using a skilled path and platform, NIL worth isn’t sustainable.
“It’s been thrilling to see the recognition and aggressive stage of collegiate gymnastics rise. So many of those athletes are solely approaching peak efficiency in faculty and have the flexibility to additional advance. The eagerness and drive to proceed within the sport doesn’t cease on the completion of eligibility,” stated KJ Kindler, Head Coach, Gymnastics, at Oklahoma College who, together with her staff, was lately named “Nationwide Teaching Employees of the Yr” by Girls’s Faculty Gymnastics Affiliation (WCGA). “GIGA will present a path to athletes who wish to lengthen their gymnastics careers nicely past the collegiate stage.”
As a mirrored image of the game’s far-reaching recognition and deep fan engagement, GIGA can be excited to announce a Netcapital marketing campaign, a fundraising effort that allows buyers of each kind to empower athletes and encourage followers by backing the way forward for gymnastics.
Hear from the the athletes about GIGA!
About GIGA
The International Affect Gymnastics Alliance (GIGA) is the primary ladies’s skilled gymnastics league and media platform, established to supply post-Olympic and NCAA athletes with skilled alternatives and to satisfy the rising demand from followers. Co-founded by Maura Fox, Aimee Boorman, and LaPrise Williams, GIGA merges a ladies’s professional league with an revolutionary multimedia platform to reinforce athlete visibility and fan engagement by way of stay occasions, storytelling, and distinctive experiences.