Scoring beyond boundaries: decoding women’s empowerment through the women’s premier league (WPL)

The expansion of women’s professional sport is often presented as evidence of progress toward gender equality, yet the conditions under which it may enable meaningful empowerment remain insufficiently understood. This question is particularly salient where rapid commercialisation intersects with entrenched gender inequalities. Focusing on India’s Women’s Premier League (WPL), this study examines how institutional and commercial arrangements shape opportunities for women cricketers. Drawing on a historical archival analysis of publicly available materials from the league’s formative period (2022–2026), the study identifies three interrelated dimensions: athletic capability empowerment, economic and identity empowerment, and visibility and participation empowerment. Interpreted through the ability–motivation–opportunity framework and Kabeer’s processual account of empowerment, these dimensions show how the WPL creates and distributes resources and opportunities that may support empowerment. The archival evidence does not establish whether those conditions translate into greater agency or lasting achievements for individual players. The study contributes an institutionally grounded account of the possibilities and limits of empowerment within a commercialising women’s sport ecosystem.