When Perrigo launched the first over-the-counter birth control pill in early 2024, it simultaneously began working with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

At the time, the WNBA was investing in civic engagement and reproductive health advocacy in communities of color, a natural fit for a brand such as Opill.

Opill’s rollout alongside the WNBA partnership led to marked improvements in the brand health tracking scores — but more importantly, it fostered a community and safe space for the brand’s target audience, according to Leila Bahbah, U.S. women’s health brand lead at Perrigo.

The WNBA partnership “was not to make it a gimmicky thing just to build awareness,” Bahbah explains. “It was really rooted in our shared values of empowerment, equity and access.”

The campaign made it apparent to Opill that “community-building outperforms one-off campaigns” in the long run for healthcare brands seeking to drive behavior change.

Perrigo is far from the only pharma company to commit to women’s sports. As viewership and popularity of women’s sports has surged, so has brand investment: ad spend in women’s sports grew 139% in 2024. Pharma is one of the biggest spenders in the space, with companies such as Eli Lilly, AbbVie, Sanofi and Kenvue all increasing their investments in women’s sports.

Female athletes are increasingly influential voices at the intersection of performance, wellness and societal change, according to Jen Oleksiw, global chief customer officer, group VP at Eli Lilly. The athletes give pharma marketers a chance to move the needle on women’s health issues in ways that go beyond simple logo slaps. 

“Our approach to holistic health starts with a simple belief that movement is a powerful driver of lifelong health,” Oleksiw says. “Investing in women’s sports is one way we can help remove barriers to movement and advance holistic health across every stage of life.”

The rise of women’s sports

In recent years, women’s sports have skyrocketed in popularity, with athletes such as Caitlin Clark, Simone Biles and Ilona Maher becoming household names. Televised games across the WNBA, NCAA women’s basketball and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) saw a 430% increase from 2021 to 2024, up to 370 million viewers, according to an August report from McKinsey. 

Brands are taking notice of the new engaged audience and investing their ad dollars. From 2022 to 2024, women’s sports revenue jumped 4.5 faster than men’s sports. In 2024, ad spend in women’s sports reached $244 million, according to EDO.

As the second biggest spender in the space, pharma invested $26.2 million in 2024, or about 11% of the total spend. 

Eli Lilly spends the most among pharma on advertising and sponsorships, inking massive deals like its $5.68 million partnership with the Indiana Fever last year.

“The momentum, the surge, is real,” says Melanie Lysaght, director of innovation at CMI Media Group. Lysaght notes pharma clients are rapidly expressing more interest in women’s sports.

The intersection of health, culture and sport

At the center of the rise of women’s sports in pharma marketing is the unique ecosystem it provides compared to men’s sports, according to Bahbah.

Historically, discussions around health situations, injuries or illnesses were more stigmatized and could be seen as a weakness in men’s sports. Female athletes, in her experience, often have a more open dynamic when it comes to speaking about their health issues and challenges.

“Women [tend to be] more comfortable being vulnerable about their situation, their experience, their healthcare, which helps them connect with their fans,” Bahbah says. “It’s not seen as a weakness; it’s simply a part of their reality [as an athlete].”

Eli Lilly focuses on female athletes who reflect resilience, whole person health and real-world experiences navigating health challenges, according to Oleksiw.

Lilly’s partnership with the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark centers on mental health as much as it does physical health, with Clark participating in “Back to School with Lilly” videos in which the basketball star talks to kids about their health and dreams.

“As a partner to the Indiana Fever, Lilly is leveraging the reach and cultural momentum that you’ve seen from women’s basketball to raise the awareness of disease, expand access to care and support our underserved communities,” Oleksiw says.

While Lilly is the biggest pharma spender in the space, other brands have been catching up. In September, Kenvue’s Tylenol launched a multiyear partnership with the NWSL and Gotham FC.

“There’s so much connection between the passions of our consumers and our products in women’s sports,”says Jen Gow, U.S. pain care lead at Kenvue. 

According to Gow, she believes women’s soccer is the next big thing. Soccer offers brands a diverse audience that’s largely young, and often international — with 54% of fans under the age of 45, and a demographic that’s 30% Hispanic.

“You get to help shape some of these leagues and have your name be attached to it,” explains CMI Media Group group SVP, engagement strategy Kelly Morrison. “The leagues are looking for partnership opportunities to build in parallel with the brand or the company. You get to be a part of their rise as well as your rise.”

Can women’s sports marketing move the needle on women’s health?

Historically, pharma’s presence in sports was largely limited to a logo slap. In women’s sports, brands are discovering they can drive raise awareness while striking a deeper connection with the community. As Lysaght puts it: “We have an opportunity to do things differently than we have with men’s sports.”

For Opill, women’s sports marketing has become about building community, loyalty and a safe space, according to Bahbah. “It’s not just a one-and-done, but about building it over time,” she says.

As one example of a community-building marketing effort, Oleksiw cites Lilly’s Court Is Hers program, launched last year, that’s designed to increase participation in girls’ basketball programs by removing cost as a barrier.

The program supports the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis by covering registration fees for girls who sign up to play. With girls twice as likely to drop out of sports as boys — and 75% of children in Indiana not receiving the recommended amount of exercise — Lilly saw the program as a chance to begin changing health disparities at the ground level.

Eli Lilly reports that the Court Is Hers program has already boosted participation, with Fall 2025 sign-ups at the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis seeing a 277% increase from the year before. Winter sign-ups jumped 353% year over year as of January 2026. 

Results from campaigns such as these in women’s sports are encouraging to Bahbah, who points to the large gaps in women’s health that still remain. 

“It’s like we found our safe haven within women’s sports, but unfortunately we don’t necessarily have that on other platforms,” Bahbah says. “That’s a challenge that all women’s health products face — that I can say with confidence that men-specific products do not face.”

From the January 01, 2026 Issue of MM+M – Medical Marketing and Media