It was only in 1971 that the FA lifted the ban on women’s professional football that had been in place since 1921. It was following a successful football match on Boxing Day 1920 between Dick, Ferr FC and St Helen’s Ladies in Goodison Park, Liverpool, one that attracted 53,000 fans, that the FA banned women from playing on official football pitches. Similar bans existed in France and Germany. From being banned to becoming a fast-growing sport and business, women’s football is worth paying attention to and investing in.
Equal pay for equal work?
An independent review into women’s football chaired by Karen Carney concluded that in 10 years, women’s football could be a billion-pound industry, but increased minimum standards and investment is needed to transform the sport. One key aspect of the sport in need of reform is players' salaries. The maximum salary in the FA Women’s Super League is £210,000 whereas the average salary in the English Premier League (EPL) is £3,090,200. In 2017, the average monthly salary of a female footballer was $600, according to a report by FIFPro. 50% of players don’t have an employment contract and 30% have to work a second job to supplement their income. The low salaries of the players impact the quality of the game, especially in the leagues that are not fully professionalized. The review by Karen Carney recommended a fully professionalised environment in the top two tiers of the women’s game, as well as the introduction of a minimum salary in the Women’s Super League by 2025-2026. The first time the FA Women’s Super League became fully professionalised was in 2018-2019. Much investment is needed to professionalize women’s football- starting with ensuring better remuneration for the key players.
Investments made so far
Football’s governing bodies are committed to investing in the game. FIFA is committed to doubling women’s participation in football to 60 million by 2026. In addition, UEFA also committed to delivering 50% more funding to the sport from 2020. Large corporations are also invested in the game. Barclays invested £15 million in England’s Women’s Super League including a title sponsorship and being head partner of the FA Girls’ Football School Partnerships, representing the biggest single investment in British women’s sport by a business. The sport was described as a “start-up business” by Karen Carney, chair of the Carney Review, an independent review of the state of women’s football. More investment, sponsorships and better broadcasting deals will grow the sport into a billion-pound industry.
A growing audience
The famous Orange World Cup advert broadcast this July disproves the notion that women’s football is boring. In the advert, the faces of the French women’s national team, Les Bleues, were initially concealed by the faces of the French men’s national team, Les Bleus. Most viewers were surprised when later it was revealed that it was Les Bleues who they were watching all along. An increasing number of people are becoming fans of women’s football. Research by Nielsen Sports shows that 36% of football supporters surveyed across 24 markets said that they were fans of women’s football- an audience of around 314 million people. Furthermore, on 22 April 2022 91,648 fans watched Barcelona compete against Vfl Wolfsburg, breaking the record, which was set just a month earlier, for the most fans watching a women’s match. In addition to the 3.6 million people who watched the match on broadcasting platforms. This demonstrates the growing interest in women’s football.
The growth of the WNBA can be compared to the trajectory of the WSL. According to David Berri, professor of Economics at South Utah University, who has written extensively about the business of sports, the main difference between the WNBA and the NBA is time. He highlighted in a Bloomberg documentary titled ‘The Business Case for Investing in Women’s Sports’ that the WNBA is 25 years old. When the NBA was 25 years old it attracted similar amounts of fans as the WNBA does today. Berri’s research shows that this happens across a range of sports as it often takes a generation to grow a sport into a huge business like the NBA. Similar parallels can be drawn with women’s football with the Super League only having been professionalised recently and other women’s football matches already breaking records for attendance. A relatively small but rapidly growing audience presents an opportunity for sponsors of women’s football to build brand awareness amongst an increasing population.
According to the founder of Sports Innovation Lab (SIL), Angela Ruggiero, fans of women’s football are more committed to the game given the extra effort needed to access women’s sport. The VP of Data and Insights at the Sports Innovation Lab, Caiti Donovan noted that this has led to a group of ‘early adopters’, early fans of women’s football who may represent 1-10% of the fan base but 50-80% of the revenues of the business. The behaviour of fans of women’s football is also slightly different to that of other sports. The VP said that we are in the age of the fluid fan. One that accesses sports and sports-related content in a variety of ways. Both Donovan and Ruggiero predict that social media and new digital technologies present opportunities for women’s football to drive more revenue. A SIL report recommended adopting a community-based monetization model which focuses on producing content, distributing it and measuring the quality of the engagement over the quantity. The report also projected that the global sports industry will be $800 billion by 2030 and if women’s sport is invested in, it could account for ⅓ of that revenue. Women’s football is likely to generate a significant amount of that revenue.
Conclusion
Women’s football, far from being boring, is an exciting opportunity for investors to access a different kind of sports fan as well as a growing audience. Not only will this provide returns to investors but also benefit the sport itself, with clubs, players and investors all being part of an epoch in the history of sport. There is a sound business case for investment into women’s football, with a growing audience that is digitally savvy and commitment from governing bodies to investing in the game. Women’s football has been described as a start-up business. One with a high chance of growing into a very profitable one. This is only possible if the opportunity is seized now to invest in the future of women’s sport.
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