Being a sports fan and being a woman is not always the easiest road to walk. Although there have been countless teams to pull for, and an endless parade of superstars to be in awe of, for a lot of women that meant watching men, and only men play.

Now that doesn't mean that women were not involved in sports. In the world of college basketball, women took to the court for the first intercollegiate women's basketball game, right here in the bay area.  Stanford vs UC Berkeley in 1896, and around that same time in 1895, the British Lady’s Football Club played their first match in London.

So the fact is, women have always been in the sports universe, but compared to their male counterparts, they've always been more in the shadows. But there has been progress along the way with more eyes turning to women's pro sports teams, and that turns us to 2023. A year that has shown that the appetite for womens sports is growing, and in particular, growing here in the Bay Area.

For more on this, KBS Radio’s Mary Hughes spoke with Rita Liberti, Professor of sport history  in the department of kinesthesiology at  Cal State East Bay.