Women’s sports are growing in popularity. For Calgary Wild FC, it’s unlocking a new kind of fanbase

September 20, 2025

Playing in the inaugural season of the Northern Super League, Calgary Wild FC — Alberta’s only pro women’s soccer team — says it’s attracting a new kind of audience to the sport.

“Going into it with the research we had done, we were expecting 50 per cent men, 50 per cent women. We were expecting some overlap with traditional sports fans,” said the team’s founder and chair Deanna Zumwalt, speaking with This is Calgary’s Jenny Howe.

But Wild FC’s fanbase is defying those expectations, with women making up roughly 70 per cent of it, according to Zumwalt.

“Our real strong demographic is women… 35 to 40 to 55 years of age that are coming to the game. And 25 per cent of our fans have really not consumed, I would say, a sport product and don’t follow any other team in the city,” she explained.

“I think we’ve got something really special here that… other sports brands should maybe take a look at, because we are tapping into a group of people that have never really traditionally followed sport,” she said. CBC