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Despite multiple structural changes since its 2011 inception, many English Women's Super League (WSL) clubs have recorded losses and carried debt, leading to concerns about the financial health of the league. This study is the first to analyse the financial health of any professional women's sports league in the world. The authors examine WSL club finances between 2011 and 2019, theoretically situate the findings within joint production, and make policy recommendations.

In total, 73 annual accounts of 14 WSL clubs between 2011 and 2019 were scrutinised.

Since 2011, club revenue has increased 590% but is outstripped by club debt increase (1,351%). The authors find poor financial health throughout the league, which may damage both its and the clubs' future growth. Findings also indicate an emergent group of dominant clubs on and off the pitch, which may threaten long-term sporting integrity and disrupt the joint production of the WSL product.

Women's football exists at an important crossroad, and its next moves need careful consideration in relation to its governance structures and league design.

The authors provide a road map for necessary action (e.g. revenue distribution, licensing criteria, rewards) to protect the financial health of the WSL's clubs and promote sporting competition to assist the sport to capitalise further on positive gains in recent years.

This study aims to examine diversity and inclusivity in sports from a sexual orientation perspective. A literature review summarizes known findings on attitudes and perceptions of and towards nonbinary individuals in sports. Adopting Herek’s (2007) Sexual Stigma perspective, an experiment is conducted exploring the differences in fan attitudes and behavioral intentions towards nonbinary athletes in both women’s and men’s sports.

A systematic review of extant literature identified 24 peer-reviewed primary studies examining nonbinary individuals in sports. A 2 (Sport: Women’s vs. Men’s Basketball) × 2 (Nonbinary Indicator: Indicator vs. No-Indicator) experimental study was then designed to further explore fan attitudes towards nonbinary athletes.

The study revealed that, among sports fans, there was no perceived performance difference in women’s or men’s basketball linked to athletes’ nonbinary status (as measured by athletic ability, future performance, sportsmanship, talent and quickness). However, measures of fan support (sport engagement, intention to buy team merchandise and team fanship) were lower when the athlete was perceived as nonbinary. For women’s basketball, team fanship and intention to buy team merchandise were significantly lower, while the difference was not significant in men’s basketball.

Along with an inclusive review of prior literature, this is the first empirical study to examine the differences in fans’ attitudes towards nonbinary athletes in both women’s and men’s sports at the same time via an experimental design.

Sport co-produces our notions of sex, gender and sexuality. Sport policies based on inclusion demand trans athletes become visible. This creates a problem within sport's hierarchical gender order, and trans athletes' bodies become comprehensible only through mobility from one sex/gender to the other – literally the embodiment of movement through a static gendered space.

In this chapter, we examine the contradictory expectations placed on trans athletes to be visible within heterosexist, white supremacist ‘regimes of looking’ (Fleetwood, 2011). Our purpose is twofold: (1) to critically examine the construction of transness through white racial frames and (2) to grapple with the inherent harmfulness of sport. We ask why trans people would want to participate in an institution that actively limits opportunities for expansive subjectivity, ultimately concluding that the potential for queer futures lies in the very construction of limits themselves. We forward a belief in what sport could be when intentionally created through queer world building. We highlight teams, leagues and spaces that have developed processes that work against dominant forms of medicolegal recognition and visibility politics.

Despite increasingly persuasive women-focused marketing of gambling products, there has only been limited investigation around women sports betting. Men remain the focus of much of the conversation about sports betting as they have generally been found to be the most active sports bettors and the most at risk of experiencing harms associated with their behaviour. This chapter aims to fill this gap by exploring the characteristics of young women sports bettors in the United Kingdom and the relationship between sports betting and the experience of gambling harms. To do this, we created two models of analysis. Our analysis is based on data from the first wave (2019) of the Emerging Adults Gambling Survey (EAGS) dataset (n = 3,549). The EAGS is a non-probability longitudinal survey that includes individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 who were residents in Britain at the time of data collection. Firstly, we examined the associations between women sports bettors and several factors identified as important predictors of sports betting. Secondly, we sought to understand the relationship between women's sports betting and the harms associated with this activity. From these models, we found that women's sports betting was most reliably predicted according to fandom and peer influence. We also found that women sports bettors were more at risk of experiencing harms associated with difficulties with family and friends than women gamblers using other products.

This chapter investigates resistance initiated by trans athletes and their allies and evaluates developments in policies and practices at the international, national and local levels of sport. The limitations of liberal approaches to trans inclusion are identified, and examples of radical, transformative approaches grounded in intersectional feminism are presented, together with an analysis of the crucial roles of solidarity work provided by allies and accomplices. The potential offered by boxing as a route to empowerment for trans and nonbinary participants is examined. An overview of recent media coverage of trans athletes suggests that global resistance is having an important impact on mainstream journalism. Finally, this chapter outlines how a successful campaign challenging a trans-exclusive Sport Canada's 2022 opinion survey and a recent report by Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport provide further evidence of effective resistance to trans exclusion in sport.

In the binary sex-segregated space of professional sports, sex-gender diversity is met with suspicion, derision and exclusion. In the United States, along with widespread anti-trans policies at various societal levels, legislations and regulations are being pushed to limit or eliminate transgender athletes from competing in all levels of sports. However, little scholarship has considered the implications of the presence of nonbinary athletes, those who identify outside the spectrum of man and woman, beyond the conversation of a ‘third gender’ category in sport. In this chapter, I seek to examine how nonbinary athletes embody disobedience by challenging the binary categorization of sex-gender within professional sports. I explore the racialized embodiment of sex and gender in professional women's sports, specifically WNBA player Layshia Clarendon. I explore how disobedience is employed to incite resistance against the narrow sex-gender categories that are forced upon athletes. Finally, I argue that embodied disobedience provides a key pathway for nonbinary athletes to undermine the regulatory nature of sex-gender categorization in sport. Particularly, nonbinary athletes may seek medical and social forms of gender affirmation, while simultaneously embodying disobedience by continuing to actively participate in professional sports categories in which they may not neatly fit.

The increased importance of sports and athlete brands highlights the need for athletes to pay attention to branding as it has positive impacts. As athletes, Muslim women have not succeeded in building their brands. This study aims to understand the branding challenges facing Muslim female athletes and how to overcome them.

These branding obstacles and guidelines were explored using qualitative methods – specifically semi-structured interviews with Muslim female athletes and focus groups with experts. Data were analysed using open and axial coding to identify the codes.

The study identifies three major obstacles to branding by Muslim female athletes. Self-related obstacles, such as knowledge of brand building, social media, personal pressure and a lack of role models, impact the brand-building decision. Social-related (family and society) and sport-related obstacles (participation as women and as Muslims) further complicate this task. Experts provide additional insights regarding these obstacles, suggesting strategies to overcome them.

The research focuses on athletes from one geographical area and has limitations associated with using qualitative methods.

The study suggests how self-, social- and sport-related obstacles are faced by athletes. It provides suggestions for federations, sports codes and other stakeholders to support athletes to overcome these barriers.

This study expands the understanding of the struggles Muslim women face in building their brands as part of an under-represented group.

In the face of widespread opposition and hostility, trans and nonbinary athletes, from recreational to professional levels, continue to resist exclusion and oppression by daring to compete, participate and play. The long-standing binary thinking that characterizes sport poses particular challenges for trans women, who are positioned by advocates of trans exclusion as an alleged threat to women's sport.

As context for this discussion, Lenskyj examines how social psychologists have contributed to understandings of belonging and community and the implications for trans and nonbinary athletes' rights to share the benefits that sport offers. The concept of ‘deliberative freedoms’ – including freedom to live one's life without having others view certain traits as ‘costs’ – provides a framework for investigating resistance.

Greey then draws on a sociological understanding of gender to argue that inclusion is not synonymous with belonging. Belonging for trans athletes, Greey argues, requires more than the ‘letter of the law.’ Belonging requires recognition from teammates, coaches and other sport community members. An overview of terminology is presented, followed by an overview of chapters, summarizing the key themes and findings.

Recent research suggests positive links between adolescents' participation in sports and the quality of their relationships with their fathers. It is unclear, however, the degree to which the gendered nature of sports, and in particular the ways sports have been used to define and express masculinity, mean that these important links between sports participation and parent–child relationships might or might not extend to relationships with mothers. Recent scholarship connects joint recreational activities to mother–child relationships, but here we extend these ideas in connection to adolescents' formal sports participation. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health from the United States to evaluate potential connections between adolescent sports participation and maternal relationships, focusing on the adolescent's perspective on joint activities with mother, closeness to and warmth and communication with mother, and satisfaction with the relationship with mother. We also examine whether these associations differ for boys and girls. We found that adolescents' sports participation was good for relationships with their mothers, but also that there were gender differences in how sport paid off for boys and girls. We discuss our findings in terms of contemporary shifts in gendered norms and conclude that gender may remain salient to how sports participation can promote mother–child relationships.

This chapter examines trans and gender non-conforming persons' experiences of recreational sport and physical activity (PA). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with trans and gender non-conforming people, which were then analyzed using critical discourse analysis (CDA). Participants highlighted that while they did derive enjoyment from sport and physical activity, most mainstream spaces they had experienced, such as organized sport and gyms, were still unsafe and unwelcoming. These experiences were largely due to the continued influence of binary notions of gender on the organization of sport and physical activity as well as assumptions about bodily performance and presentation. Participants discussed how gendered bodily norms influenced the way they experienced their own bodies, both a result of others' perceptions and through self-surveillance. They also reflected on creating their own physical activity communities as a way to derive the benefits of physical activity while avoiding discriminatory experiences in mainstream spaces.