What's behind the WAG renaissance?

Vox

22-05-2025

is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media.
Don't call Kylie Kelce a WAG. The acronym for the 'wives and girlfriends' of professional athletes rankles the podcaster, who first rose to fame as the wife of retired Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce. As Kelce explains, the phrase suggests that 'your spouse's profession swallows you up as well.'
But many in the media are heralding this moment as a 'new era' for WAGs, and Kelce is just one of several famous women who are at the fore of this renaissance: Everyone from TikToker Alix Earle, who is dating Miami Dolphins player Braxton Berrios, to Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles — unquestionably the more famous athlete — who is married to the Chicago Bears' Jonathan Owens. Then there's Taylor Swift, one of the most successful musicians on the planet, who, thanks to her relationship with Kylie's brother-in-law Travis Kelce, has become the ultimate symbol of the new WAG.
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Meanwhile, a host of lesser-known women are experiencing their first taste of fame through their relationships with tennis players, Formula 1 race-car drivers, and even pole-vaulters. A sizable number have leveraged their romantic lives to receive brand deals, podcasting opportunities, and magazine profiles.
By and large, our understanding of WAGs is rapidly evolving to acknowledge their own social and economic power. They've transformed from tabloid punching bags to an appealing status symbol. Still, the continued use of the term does raise some complicated questions: Why are we so interested in defining these women, some of whom are independently successful, by their relationships to men? And what does it mean that they might be raking in more attention and financial opportunities than some female athletes?
The rise of the new WAG
The public's fascination with WAGs isn't new. The acronym originated across the pond in the early 2000s to describe the wives and girlfriends of English footballers. British tabloids and football fans alike lambasted women — celebrities in their own right — like former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Cole and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for their partying, extravagant spending, and flashy, maximalist looks. When the England national football team lost the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their partners were blamed in the press for the defeat.
In the United States, being a WAG could be an equally dangerous public position. From Jessica Simpson to the Kardashians, they've been painted as distractions, attention-seekers, and bearers of bad luck.
Over the past two decades, though, a WAG has become less of an involuntary title and more of an identity that some women are willing to cultivate, given that it can come with its own rewards.
David and Victoria Beckham at the MOBO Awards on October 6, 1999.This modern version of WAG-dom can be credited to early 2010s reality shows like WAGS, Basketball Wives, and La La's Full Court Life. These platforms allowed these women — some anonymous before they entered into relationships with athletes — to craft their own public narratives and become notable personalities on their own.
For years now, Ayesha Curry, wife of Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, has modeled what it means to be a 'WAG influencer,' embracing her public relationship with her spouse while building a separate career as a successful cookbook author and host.
Since then, WAG-influencers have become a welcome staple of certain sports cultures. Formula 1 has exploded in recent years, with a small part of that popularity owed to the sport's stylish other halves. Since 2017, female viewership has grown from 8 percent to 40 percent. This has been largely credited to the popular Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which put a spotlight on the personal lives of drivers and, naturally, their partners.
Lily Herman, who writes the F1 newsletter Engine Failure, says that the current popularity of WAG-influencers in Formula 1 can be credited to the former partners of a few young popular drivers from 2019 to 2022, like Carlos Sainz's girlfriend Isa Hernáez and Charles Leclerc's girlfriend Charlotte Sine, who were both featured on Drive to Survive. In 2022, Sine was the first WAG in the sport to explicitly use her access to the F1 circuit as a part of an ad campaign for the skincare brand Sunday Riley.
'They were around during an era where the sport saw a lot of growth in its younger fan base, especially among teen girls and younger women, and there was a new wave of interest in these young drivers' personal lives,' says Herman.
These women have inspired fan pages, Tumblr accounts, and subreddits dedicated to their relationships, fashion, and rumored drama. Lately, the organization has fully embraced WAGs as recognizable supporting characters in the F1 universe, featuring them on social media and including them on chyrons during racing broadcasts.
Tennis has tried to replicate the WAG-to-influencer pipeline too, although the sport and its fans are still warming up to the presence of outside partners. Morgan Riddle, who's dating highest-ranked American male player Taylor Fritz, has been making get-ready-with-me videos for tournaments and vlogging about her life on the tennis tour since 2022. Ayan Broomfield, a former college tennis player who's dating Frances Tiafoe, and influencer Paige Lorenze, who's dating Tommy Paul, have mimicked the same career path, broadcasting their lives as WAGs on social media.
Herman says that WAGs play a role in 'adding dimension' to their male partners, contributing to the marketability of both. 'Fritz is pretty bland as a public figure without his girlfriend,' says Herman. 'She's done way more in her work as an influencer and content creator to make him seem multidimensional than he has through solo interviews and profiles.'
It certainly benefits younger, newer WAGs who are already powerful women. Biles and Swift have joined their ranks and seem to take pride in the role. Beckham, now a successful fashion designer, has also played a role in igniting a nostalgia for WAGs, thanks to the popular 2023 Netflix docuseries Beckham.
The business of being a WAG is still very traditional
In our current political climate, the WAG boom raises interesting questions. Research shows that some Gen Z-ers are identifying as more conservative than their parents. 'Trad wife' content abounds online. Where do WAGs fit in?
WAG influencers share some obvious similarities to tradwife influencers, women who've created lucrative identities and even businesses by perpetuating conservative ideas of marriage and motherhood. In a Substack essay, sports writer Frankie De La Cretaz argues that WAGs are essentially the tradwives of men's sports: 'No matter how many businesses a WAG starts or how many charities she runs, she still embodies a heteronormative idea of family and a woman's place in society.'
It's hard to get around the fact that most WAGs are initially famous for their association with a male partner, although they may ultimately transcend that attachment (see Kylie Kelce's complaint about being called a WAG and consider that her podcast, Not Gonna Lie, briefly dethroned The Joe Rogan Experience when it debuted in 2024).
WAGs are gaining visibility while the most talented female athletes are still fighting for wage parity and struggling to land brand deals.
But even attempts to define WAGs outside of their relationships come off a bit shallow. Stories about how these women are impacting sports largely focus on their brand deals and follower counts. When we celebrate the influence of WAGs, we're mostly talking about their ability to turn other women into consumers and spectators, not athletes.
Meanwhile, WAGs are gaining visibility while the most talented female athletes are still fighting for wage parity and struggling to land brand deals. Back in March, Australian tennis pro Daria Saville made a TikTok about the lack of sponsorships she and other female pros receive compared to tennis WAGs. 'Female tennis players are not getting those brand deals,' she said. 'It's actually tennis WAGs that fit into the 'aesthetic' rather than, us, sweaty tennis players.'
De la Cretaz tells Vox that the WAG boom echoes the mainstream platforming of tradwives. 'It's an extension of 'girlboss' feminism, the idea that promoting women regardless of what that looks like is somehow good for women,' De la Cretaz says. 'It's also this idea that whatever you're choosing is valid, even though those choices don't exist in a vacuum.'
The most visible WAGs are still predominantly in straight relationships, and a large part of being one still involves affirming a male athlete's heterosexuality. As journalist Kira Cochrane wrote in a 2010 piece for the Guardian about football WAGs, 'consciously or not, the women know their role is to boost their partner's masculinity.' She added that their often highly feminized presentation 'underlines [their] status as possessions, part of the package for footballers.'
WAGs, with their new clout and influence, haven't exactly gotten a total makeover. Rather, their hustle has grown more appealing. After all, they represent all the things women are encouraged to be in a time when mainstream culture is trending more conservative. They're tradwives. They're girlbosses. They're stylish and beautiful. Most of all, they're sitting on the sidelines.