{"id":794024,"date":"2026-05-13T18:31:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794024\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T18:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:31:17","slug":"jacksonville-waves-ride-crest-of-womens-sports-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794024\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville Waves ride crest of women\u2019s sports investment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s pro basketball will return to Florida this weekend when the Jacksonville Waves<\/a> tip off in the UPSHOT League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The inaugural season for the four-team league begins this weekend when the Waves host the Charlotte Crown on Friday night inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.<\/p>\n

Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. A fan festival outside the arena starts at 5.<\/p>\n

UPSHOT arrives as women\u2019s professional sports witness a renaissance in public attention, game attendance and sponsor investment.<\/p>\n

No place like home<\/p>\n

Grand Park native Rennia Davis<\/a> says the ability to showcase her basketball development in her hometown is very big deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s meant a lot. But, I think it\u2019s going to mean more to the other girls that are coming up in the city, the other girls that are coming up in the area\u201d Davis says. \u201cWhen they can see it, and they can feel it, it\u2019s more tangible. It\u2019s more realistic now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rennia<\/p>\n

\t\tRennia Davis, center, says growing up in Grand Park and having a chance to play for the Jacksonville Waves will allow other girls and women to dream of careers in basketball. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Since Davis helped Ribault High win the Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods High School Nationals in 2016, she has signed with the University of Tennessee and earned her a degree in hotel, restaurant and tourism management<\/a> from the Knoxville school.<\/p>\n

Davis was selected ninth overall in the 2021 WNBA Draft. Professionally, Davis has competed in Australia, Turkey, Mexico, Poland and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to be realistic, also, about the fact that every girl is not going to make it to the WNBA,\u201d Davis says. \u201cBut, that doesn\u2019t mean that you don\u2019t have the opportunity to play professional basketball. This is showing the girls right here in the city \u2018Hey, we got all these girls here, all these great professional athletes, you can also do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Opportunities have expanded for women in sports since Davis was named Florida\u2019s Miss Basketball in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u2018Everyone watches women\u2019s sports\u2019<\/p>\n

Bank of America Institute projected investment in women\u2019s sports will grow by $2.5 billion by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s basketball has been at the vanguard.<\/p>\n

Bank of America Institute reported this spring that in 2024 ticket sales in the WNBA increased 48% and merchandise sales increased 600% from 2023.<\/p>\n

ESPN announced last month that its women\u2019s college basketball viewership<\/a> for the 2025-26 regular season was its highest in more than 15 years and a 19% increase from the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville has been a beneficiary of the broader commitment to women\u2019s sports. The Waves will arrive less than 12 months after Sporting Club Jacksonville<\/a> launched a fully professional women\u2019s pro soccer team.<\/p>\n

Sporting Jax and the Jacksonville Waves have both launched with local talent on their rosters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout basketball, I would not have seen 90% of the places that I\u2019ve seen,\u201d Davis says. \u201cI\u2019ve been to almost every state in America, and I\u2019ve been to so many different countries that I didn\u2019t even know existed. I\u2019ve just enjoyed the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been able to meet people, meet myself in a different way, learn, grow. \u2026 Seeing the Northside for 18 years, and then going to Knoxville, Europe, then Australia and all these places, I just never knew some of this stuff existed. Basketball has given me an opportunity that I think nothing else would have given me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zawyer Sports & Entertainment has owned men\u2019s professional sports teams in Florida for nearly a decade \u2014 including the Jacksonville Icemen. Its CEO, Andy Kaufmann, has long spoken about the need for similar opportunities for women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

\"Jacksonville<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Jacksonville Waves christen the basket inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on Wednesday, May 12, 2026, ahead of their inaugural game against the Charlotte Crown on Friday. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Zawyer owns the UPSHOT League. One of its first hires was to bring in Donna Orender, a former WNBA commissioner and longtime Northeast Florida resident, as UPSHOT commissioner.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the journey towards opening night this Friday for UPSHOT began six years ago when it became clear to me that young girls were not given the same opportunity to view their dreams of playing the sport they love professionally as realistic of a dream (or) goal that would otherwise be for young boys with those same dreams,\u201d Kaufmann says in a statement to Jacksonville Today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is when the idea of UPSHOT was born. To be just 48 hours away from tipping off in front of sold-out crowds in Jacksonville and Greensboro (and eight or nine days away from the same in Savannah and Charlotte) is goosebump-worthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, Orender says, more than 40 players in the UPSHOT League have spent time on a WNBA roster or competed as a training camp invitee. She says the growth of women\u2019s sports happens in incremental steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about growing the game, it\u2019s about uplifting communities,\u201d Orender says. \u201cAnd, you want to do it where it matters most to you. It\u2019s usually where you live or where you play or where they love you most. \u2026 We like to say the UPSHOT League is a league of opportunity. It\u2019s an opportunity on the court, it\u2019s an opportunity on the sidelines for all of our coaches. It\u2019s an opportunity in our front offices in every, single market.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its 2025 Sports Trends Report, Neilsen noted that supporting women\u2019s sports is no longer the right thing to do, but a business imperative. The Neilsen report found that women are not only fueling the growth of women\u2019s sports leagues and teams, but have a buying power that can bring new sponsorships.<\/p>\n

Hoop dreams<\/p>\n

Point guard Ariel Hearn will captain the Waves this weekend. <\/p>\n

On the eve of the league\u2019s inaugural game, Hearn expressed personal gratitude for her basketball predecessors.<\/p>\n

\"Jacksonville<\/p>\n

\t\tJacksonville Waves point guard Ariel Hearn, right, helps the team christen the hoops inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on Wednesday, May 12, 2026. Hearn is joined by teammates Janasia Law, left, Lindsey Pulliam and Taylor Soule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a privilege and an honor,\u201d Hearn says. \u201cIt definitely makes me realize how far I have come in my journey to be a captain of a professional team. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve always aspired to be. To be here, I don\u2019t know if I can say I manifested it, but I know I\u2019ve dreamed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last decade Hearn\u2019s basketball odyssey has taken her to Iceland, Germany and within multiple women\u2019s basketball leagues in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing about this group is that every single one of us has a redemption story,\u201d Hearn says. \u201cWe\u2019ve all been places where we\u2019ve either been cut or we\u2019ve felt undervalued. We felt like what we gave maybe wasn\u2019t appreciated or wasn\u2019t wanted in certain places or times in our career. So, we are all here to up our shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jacksonville<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Jacksonville Waves will begin their inaugural season in the Upshot League against the Charlotte Crown on Friday, May 15, 2026, inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Waves head coach Jessica Bogia says basketball is an intimate community where connections can be forged and maintained for decades. Some of those are what brought the former Jacksonville University assistant back to the River City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so thankful this group believed in this vision that I was able to put forth from a recruiting standpoint, but also the vision that Donna and Taj (McWilliams-Franklin, vice president of basketball operations) have laid with the Upshot League,\u201d Bogia says. \u201cI\u2019m just super excited to get on the court on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s pro basketball will return to Florida this weekend when the Jacksonville Waves tip off in the UPSHOT…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":794025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,293431,3188,723,165338,7310,324046,50,37644,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-794024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-distribute","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-grand-park","tag-jacksonville","tag-jaxtdy2","tag-news","tag-pro-sports","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116568699178684870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}