Girls basketball was among the leaders in popularity in high school sports two decades ago, but according to an article published in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the sport has lost 19 percent of its participation since 2002.

Last year, basketball fell to the fourth-most popular girls sport by participation, according to data released this month by the National Federation of State High School Associations. Meanwhile, track and field, the top sport among girls, grew 10%. Volleyball and soccer also saw participation increases at 15% and 27%, respectively.

Overall, boys and girls sports at the high school level declined 4% since 2019 in the first national survey of the post-pandemic era. In that same time, girls basketball dropped 7%.

With TV ratings for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament and the WNBA on the rise, the decline in participation at the scholastic level is even more striking.

The WSJ report indicates that several forces are driving the decline, including the reality that more athletes are sticking to one sport year-round. Other factors include schools adding other sports, which have lured athletes away from the court, and the suggestion of coaches that some girls view basketball as too difficult, or not “girly” enough, to play.

“It’s sad,” Justin F. Kimball (Texas) girls basketball coach Erica Delley told the WSJ. “That’s why I came back, to make a difference and try to encourage kids to play.”

Delley is a first-year coach at her alma mater, where she played in the early 2000s when the program was a regional power. The Knights had just one player from last year’s team signed up to play, according to Delley, but she was able to convince two others to return before recruiting two dozen more with T-shirts and a promise that she’d teach them the game. Most of her team has never played basketball before.

In Texas, there is an issue with parity between powerhouse programs and smaller programs with depleted rosters, partly because of open-enrollment policies. Despite the state’s surging population, girls basketball participation has dropped 38% in the last two decades.

“A lot of athletes are specializing sooner,” Mansfield (Texas) girls basketball coach Brooke Brittain told the WSJ. “If their parents are paying thousands of dollars for them to play [club] volleyball, they don’t want them missing practice to play a basketball game.”

Iowa is another example of the decline in girls basketball participation. Girls have played high school basketball in Iowa for more than a century in front of packed crowds, but the state now has half as many players as it did during the late 1990s.

While the quality of top players remains high, many girls are choosing sports that require less specialized skill and are less exerting than basketball, according to former Valley (Iowa) girls basketball coach Josef Sigrist.

“I think club volleyball and softball and soccer in some respects are doing OK because they don’t require the physical task on your body that maybe basketball does,” Sigrist told the WSJ.

Following the overlap of a large club volleyball tournament and high school district playoffs on Presidents Day weekend in Nebraska, Creighton volleyball coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth tweeted, “VB is negatively affecting BB participation. I’m grateful for the depth of VB talent in this state, but not at the demise of BB.”

In NE, VB is negatively affecting BB participation. I’m grateful for the depth of VB talent in this state, but not at the demise of BB. As a mom of multi-sport athletes, @nsaahome please take district BB off of Pres’s Day. You are losing BB players bc you are making kids choose.

— Coach Booth (@CoachKBooth) February 22, 2022

Booth said in an interview that club tournaments have become so important that some athletes won’t participate in high school basketball in order to avoid letting down their club volleyball coaches and teammates with potential absences. With girls basketball participation down 28% since 2002 in Nebraska, Booth said she encourages multisport participation.

The number of girls basketball teams has dropped 12% in Nebraska over the last two decades, which is a result of school closures, consolidations and cooperative sponsorships, according to the Nebraska School Activities Association.

Trent Singer is the High School Editor at Just Women’s Sports. Follow him on Twitter @trentsinger.

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.

With recent transfers Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen joining first-team All-American JuJu Watkins and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class at USC next season, the Trojans look to transition from an up-and-coming squad to a legitimate title contender. 

Former Oregon State graduate student von Oelhoffen is the latest collegiate talent to commit to the program, announcing her transfer Monday via ESPN. She follows ex-Stanford leading-scorer Iriafen in the jump to the pair’s one-time Pac-12 rival.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

The 5-foot-11 Washington native was a two-time All-Pac-12 guard during her time at Oregon State. But after the recent dissolution of the Pac-12, the Corvallis side found themselves without a permanent home conference going forward. Many big name players opted to take their skill elsewhere as a result, with von Oelhoffen’s fellow ex-Beaver Raegan Beers announcing her own departure to Oklahoma on Monday.

According to DraftKings, USC is now tied with UConn for the second-best betting odds to win the 2025 NCAA women’s tournament. Dawn Staley’s tested South Carolina side, poised for a repeat performance, holds down the number one spot.

Last year, LSU loaded up in the transfer portal after beating Iowa to win the 2023 national championship. The Tigers were clear favorites coming into the 2023-24 season, but were bounced in the Elite Eight by Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes. Shortly thereafter, star transfer Hailey Van Lith opted to transfer a second time, this time signing with TCU. 

Yet while history proves that an excess of star power doesn’t always translate to on-court chemistry, on paper, USC sure looks ready to hold their own — in 2025 and beyond.

The United States and Mexico have withdrawn their joint bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, per a Monday afternoon release from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

According to the statement, they will instead focus on developing a "more equitable" bid for the 2031 tournament, with the ultimate goal of "eliminating investment disparities" between the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The federations went on to cite the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as an opportunity to build support for local infrastructure, improve audience engagement, and scale up media and partnership deals in preparation to "host a record-breaking tournament in 2031."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"Hosting a World Cup tournament is a huge undertaking — and having additional time to prepare allows us to maximize its impact across the globe," said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. "Shifting our bid will enable us to host a record-breaking Women’s World Cup in 2031 that will help to grow and raise the level of the women’s game both here at home as well as across the globe."

The decision leaves just Brazil and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the running for the 2027 host spot. Brazil — the rumored frontrunner — has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, while Germany hosted the 2011 tournament as a solo venture. 

Furthermore, this postponement doesn’t mean the U.S. is a shoo-in for 2031, as it's been previously reported that 2022 UEFA Women's EURO host England is considering their own Women's World Cup bid. FIFA is scheduled to confirm the winning bid after the FIFA Congress votes on May 17th.