From women dominating at the 2024 Paris Olympics to a resurgence of appreciation for the WNBA and the New York Liberty winning their first championship in franchise history, the current spotlight on women’s sports couldn’t be brighter!
Well, on Wednesday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Whoopi stopped by to announce her big plans for professional women’s athletics.
“I’m launching the first global women’s sports channel called AWSN (All Women’s Sports Network),” Whoopi said. “It’ll be the home for live women’s sports from around the world.”
“Everything from soccer, basketball, tennis, cricket, curling, you name it — if a woman is playing it, we’re showing it.”
AWSN has partnered with CommonSpirit. The View co-host gushed about how great the company is and how they pride themselves in promoting women’s health.
“We’re growing really fast. We’ve already launched in Asia, the Middle East, India on Jio (JioTV), and we’ve got a big announcement about our US launch coming next week.”
Whoopi, who’s currently starring as Miss Hannigan in the Broadway musical Annie, revealed she always wanted to play sports when she was younger, but people seemed to overlook her because she was a girl.
“Ever since I was a little kid, I always wanted to play sports. My brother could play. He played baseball, he played softball, he played basketball, he played everything And they would say, ‘Oh, hi little girl.’ [Referencing herself as she patted herself on the head.]”
“It always pissed me off. So, for years, I’ve been talking to people and saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could go around the world, start getting young athletes in high school so that we can grow with them and grow up with them?”
She then envisioned all of the athletes getting their own playing cards like the baseball and basketball players used to have back in the day.
“I feel like that will help us show that athletics, when they’re done brilliantly…it doesn’t matter who’s doing it. We don’t really have that relationship with women’s sports.”
She revealed this idea was 16 years in the making! To learn more of Whoopi’s Tonight Show interview, check out the full video below:
