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We Grew Faster Than Almost Any Team in American Pro Sports Last Year

  • 4 days ago
  • 4 min read

Two straight championships. Six titles. And a growth rate that holds up against the NFL, the NBA, and the fastest-rising franchises in the country. Here's the math, and here's what comes next.



Championships are the headline. Growth is the story.


In 2026, the Texas Elite Spartans won our second consecutive Women's National Football Conference championship, our sixth title, and our seventh appearance in a championship game since we first took the field in 2018. But inside our building, the trophy was never the finish line. It was proof of something harder to build: a brand growing on a curve you can measure against any league in America.


We want to show you that curve. Because if you're a fan, you're already part of it. And if you're a brand, you're looking at the last window to get in early.



What our year actually looked like



Across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Threads, Spartans content generated more than 39 million views in 2026. We reached 13.5 million people, produced more than 3.3 million engagements, and doubled our audience year over year.


That attention converted. More than 9,400 fans clicked through to buy tickets, shop merchandise, and learn more about this organization, a 258 percent increase over the previous season.


For the first time in franchise history, we called UTA Maverick Stadium home. Fans showed up: home attendance climbed 86 percent, finishing at an average of 1,051 per game, the second-highest in the WNFC.


And when we lifted the trophy in June, the championship reached 1.35 million unique viewers on ESPN2 , the largest publicly reported television audience in the history of women's professional tackle football.


Now put those numbers next to everybody else


Here's where it gets interesting.


Every January, Zoomph ranks every team across MLB, MLS, the NBA, NFL, NHL, NWSL and the WNBA by how fast their social value grew year over year. The 2025 leaderboard was led by the Dallas Wings at 324 percent, Vancouver Whitecaps FC at 241 percent, LAFC at 149 percent, and Chicago Fire at 129 percent. Below that top tier, growth drops off fast, the Jacksonville Jaguars at 87 percent, the New York Giants at 83, the New England Patriots at 75.


A doubled audience and a 258 percent lift in commercial clickthrough puts the Spartans in that top band.


We are not the size of those clubs yet. We've never claimed to be. But size is what a team buys with decades. Rate of growth is what a team earns right now, and ours is running with the fastest in the country.


Take attendance. The PWHL is rightly celebrated as the breakout story in women's team sports; it just crossed one million fans in a season, averaging 9,304 per game, up 28 percent. Strip out its two brand-new expansion markets and its returning clubs grew 18.3 percent. Our 86 percent grew roughly three to five times faster than that.


The market is moving with us


None of this is happening in a vacuum. The WNBA reported nearly two billion social views in its 2024 season, with a 252 percent jump in app users and a 250 percent rise in TikTok views. Emarketer projects viewership of women's live sports to grow 6.9 percent this year, against 0.4 percent for live sports overall.


Women's audiences aren't growing incrementally. They're growing categorically. And women's football is next: participation is accelerating across youth, high school, college and pro, and the sport makes its Olympic debut in 2028. We have spent eight years positioning ourselves for exactly this moment.


The brands who got here first


Some companies didn't wait for permission. Firstline Brands, a Texas company with products in H-E-B, Target and Walmart, came aboard in 2026, alongside Texas Fibroid Institute, one of North Texas' leading women's healthcare providers. At the community level, 52 local businesses invested directly in Spartan athletes through our NIL Banner Program.


They didn't buy a promise about the future. They bought a growth rate, an engaged audience, and a championship culture that delivers every single year. Their logos are in front of an audience that doubled in twelve months. Ask any marketer what that's worth.


What we're building next


In 2027, we're working to become the first club in WNFC history to eliminate pay-to-play.


We believe professional athletes should be carried by the strength of the business and community built around them. That doesn't get funded by trophies. It gets funded by audience, attendance, and partners who decide to build alongside us.

Back-to-back championships matter. Six titles matter.


What matters most is what those wins have made possible, and who's willing to ride this growth with us.


Rock With Us


Brands and businesses: partnership packages for the 2027 season are open now, jersey, helmet and stadium activations, digital and content integrations, community programs, and the NIL Banner Program that puts your name directly behind an athlete. Early partners get the best inventory at the best rate, and they get it before this audience doubles again.


Fans: follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Threads, grab your 2027 tickets, and wear the shield.



The future of women's football is already here. Come build it with us.


Comparative figures: Zoomph, "The Most Valuable Sports Teams on Social Media in 2025" (January 2026); PWHL 2025–26 regular season results (April 2026); WNBA 2024 season reporting and Emarketer forecasts via Inside Radio.

 
 
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