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Ok *flexes fingers* I was expecting this argument (it comes up literally any time you talk about women's sport), so it's probably time to take a look at it a little more closely.
There are two problems with the argument. The first is the assumption that we only watch "the best of the best". There are innumerable sporting leagues where people well below that level develop a substantial following. American college football, A-League, schoolboys rugby...
It might be that it's the best local competition, but why watch A-League on TV when you could watch Premier League or Bundesliga? Because there is more than just watching the "fastest, highest, strongest" that attracts us to sport.
That could be personal connection, the desire for community, or tradition. Guess what? All of those things are influenced by the fact men's sport was able to gain its social status in an era when women were largely excluded from sport.
There is the argument that those leagues are popular because of emerging talent, but that ignore both the fact there are large groups of fans who solely watch teams where none of the players will play at a higher level
See: Div III college football teams in the US. But for alumni and their family, the connection is about more than seeing the "best of the best" -- it's about personal connection and tradition. Again, traditions that were formed during an era of female exclusion.
There is a more fundamental point, though, which seems to elude many when they discuss sport in terms of "faster, higher, stronger", which is that those values are themselves a product of a cultural context. It was Baron Pierre De Coubertin who proposed the motto for the Olympics
Which has largely come to define what we value in sport. But guess what old PDC was deeply steeped in? Victorian ideas of muscular Christianity and or gender.
When sport became a cultural force, it was defined in such a way that benefited male bodies. Our understanding of sporting excellence isn't an inherent concept: it was introduced, and it was laden in certain values
(If you're looking for a concrete example of how it might be different, consider the role of flexibility in sport, and how a sport where flexibility is the prime measure of achievement might value women over men).
It's easy to think "oh, that's just what I like" or "of course men's sport is better because they're stronger". But when you take the time to unpack and examine those assumptions, you quickly discover that they are heavily influenced by ideologies that centralised maleness.
Equality in sport doesn't mean men and women competing together necessarily (though I'm all for it where it works). It means reexamining what we value in sport and realising it isn't always faster, higher, stronger.
