Women’s sports gets down to business: On track for rising monetization

Deloitte’s TMT Predictions reports have historically required a base level of a billion dollars in revenue before an emerging industry would be considered for inclusion. On this basis, the global women’s sports industry (excluding mixed events),¹ measured by the aggregate of TV rights, sponsorship, and matchday (live-event) revenues, is unlikely to qualify in 2021.

The caveat here is that women’s sports’ ability to deliver strong TV ratings is not matched by its representation in media coverage. For instance, an analysis of 250,000 news articles in more than 80 languages found that women’s tennis grand slam events received 41% less coverage than the men’s events.²² This may slow women’s tennis’s momentum, as greater awareness would likely increase viewing yet further. In addition, women’s matches are sometimes not shown on TV, or are relegated to secondary or online channels. The Women’s Twenty20 World Cup Cricket final, played in Melbourne on March 20, 2020, had a stadium audience of 86,614 fans, but it was televised on a secondary channel to avoid clashing with a news bulletin.²³ And when Japan’s team won the football Women’s World Cup in 2011, coverage of the game was obscured by a large number 7, a reminder to viewers of the number of days left to digital switchover.²⁴

Yet even this disparity in coverage appears to be changing. The successes of women’s sports events are prompting a growth in coverage, especially on secondary or online channels, albeit from a low base (see sidebar, “TV coverage of women’s sports is growing”).

Besides game coverage, more sports content with female protagonists or subjects is being created. The United Kingdom’s BT Sport and Insight TV have partnered to create a reality TV show, Ultimate Goal, that follows the journey of 28 women competing for the chance to play in a one-off match watched by talent scouts from leading women’s football clubs. According to BT, this demonstrates its commitment to “inspire a new generation of girls and women to participate in football, on and off the pitch.”³⁰ Additionally, Sky is creating original content focused on women’s sports, including interviews with women sports stars. Its lineup includes a new Extraordinary Women series featuring sports stars such as rower Victoria Evans.³¹ Other programs include “Training with MMA Star Leah McCourt” and “My Life in Lyon,” a behind-the-scenes look at the life of footballer Lucy Bronze.³²

With growing audiences and expanding coverage, the market for women’s sports rights is starting to develop. In the last few years, TV rights deals have risen in value and grown in scope. In some cases, they have been negotiated for the very first time, sometimes with little or no money changing hands, with the trade being the guarantee of TV coverage.

Admittedly, the rights values for women’s sports are still low. In the United States, ESPN pays US$25 million for its TV deal with the WNBA. In comparison, the value of the rights for US men’s basketball was US$2.6 billion as of 2019.³³ But the values for women’s sports are on a rising trajectory, with recent years seeing some notable gains (see sidebar, “TV rights for women’s sports are rising in value worldwide”).

Event-day attendance: Women’s sports games are filling major stadiums

As well as strong TV ratings, women’s sports events are also generating strong event-day attendance levels, with records being broken only to be broken again a few months later.

The draw of women’s sports has been inconsistent in the past. Attendance at women’s matches has sometimes been in the low thousands or even hundreds, especially as some contests have taken place at training grounds with limited seating, potentially deterring fans from attending due to lack of capacity and facilities. For instance, the Mexican women’s football league, the Liga MX Femenil, played some of its first (2017–2018) season’s initial games at training grounds with minimal room for fans. This also meant that the matches could not be televised.⁴⁴

In recent years, however, audiences for women’s sports in the tens of thousands have become far more common, possibly because games have been played in larger stadiums. To return to the Liga MX Femenil, the league enjoyed rising attendance throughout its first season; the final game, played within a year of the start, drew by 51,211 spectators.⁴⁵

Other women’s events have drawn more spectators still. The all-time record for a women’s football match was for the Women’s World Cup final in 1999 when the United States played China, with a live audience of 90,185.⁴⁶

National games are among the most popular for matchday attendance. In November 2019, a record 77,868 fans watched England’s women’s football team lose to Germany at London’s Wembley Stadium.⁴⁷ This was slightly more than the 77,277 fans who attended the England men’s team match against Montenegro in the same month at the same venue.⁴⁸ National women’s cricket teams have enjoyed similarly massive one-off attendances. 86,174 fans watched the T20 World Cup final between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest crowd ever for a women’s sports event in Australia.⁴⁹ The Women’s Six Nations rugby tournament has also been popular among fans. A (then) record 10,545 people attended the England-Italy match in March 2019.⁵⁰ This record was then surpassed a year later, when 10,974 fans watched England vs. Wales.⁵¹ In Ireland in 2019, 6,047 women’s rugby fans watched the Irish team play the French, a record for a stand-alone Ireland Women’s home game.⁵²

Club games also draw significant crowds. In March 2019, 60,739 football fans watched FC Barcelona Femení beat Atletico Madrid at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid, beating the prior attendance record for a women’s fixture of 48,121 at the same stadium.⁵³ In November 2019, 38,262 football fans attended the women’s “Super Derby” at Tottenham Hotspur between London rivals Spurs and Arsenal. Anfield, Liverpool FC’s stadium, drew 23,500 fans to its local derby against Everton, the first-ever WSL match it had hosted.⁵⁴ The United States’ WNBA recorded attendance of 1.33 million for the 2019 season, with the Los Angeles Sparks having the highest home-game attendance—a total of 192,224 across all home games with an average of 11,307 fans per game.

Sponsorship: In its infancy, but on a strong trajectory

The global value of sports sponsorship has been sized at US$44.9 billion per year, of which women’s sports is a fraction of this.⁵⁵ But strong TV and matchday audiences are encouraging more sponsors to consider women’s sports. The nascency of the market may make women’s sports better value for money than the men’s equivalents. Other appealing factors are likely the relative ease of concluding a deal as well a steeper potential growth trajectory.

As sponsorship interest grows, rights for women’s teams are increasingly being sold individually rather than being bundled with the men’s team. Indeed, by the time of the next FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023, we expect all women’s teams to have at least one sponsorship agreement distinct from the men’s teams.⁵⁶

Several recent agreements exemplify the growing role of sponsorships in women’s sports. In 2018, Visa signed a seven-year deal to become the first-ever sponsor of Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) women’s football, becoming the main partner of flagship events such as the UEFA Women’s Champions League and the UEFA Women’s European Championship.⁵⁷ Also in 2018, financial advisory company Vitality was named sponsor of the 2019 Netball World Cup as part of an three-year extension to an existing sponsorship deal.⁵⁸ In July 2018, Stanley Black & Decker became the Catalan football team FC Barcelona Femení’s first shirt sponsor. And more sponsorships have been announced in the two years since (see sidebar, “A sampling of sponsorships”).

We also expect a growing number of women’s teams to have multiple sponsors. For example, in January 2020, FC Barcelona Femení added a second sponsor with the announcement of the club’s first official street clothing partner, Naulover.⁶⁹

Sponsors are more likely to commit to spending equal amounts on women’s teams as men’s teams if they are sponsoring both. Adidas, which sponsored six women’s teams at the Women’s FIFA World Cup in 2019, announced it would offer equal performance bonuses to men’s and women’s teams.⁷⁰

Investment is increasing as women’s sports gains momentum

Already, we are seeing increased investment in women’s teams around the world, often via acquisitions. Valuations are still a fraction of those of men’s teams, but the low sums involved may make investments in women’s teams more attractive. In 2020, France’s Olympique Lyonnais Groupe paid US$3.15 million to acquire an 89.5% stake in NWSL’s Seattle-based team.⁷¹ Real Madrid launched its women’s team in July 2019 by acquiring the existing Madrid-based team CD Tacon for €500,000. The team, which had been promoted to La Liga Iberdrola, the country’s top women’s league, in May 2020,⁷² will train and play at Real Madrid City.

Acquisitions are not the only source of money flowing into women’s teams. Manchester United in the United Kingdom reportedly invested £5 million to re-form its women’s football team in 2018 after a 13-year absence. The team subsequently ranked as the fourth-best team in England after just two seasons.⁸⁰

Prize money in women’s sports is also going up, increasing the flow of cash into national teams. The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup awarded a total of US$30 million in prizes, with US$4 million going to the winning team; the 2023 tournament is expected to award more than twice as much, with over US$60 million on offer.⁸¹ While these amounts are small relative to the winnings garnered by men’s teams, growth in women’s teams’ awards are outpacing those of their male counterparts.

Investments are happening at the youth level as well, where football programs for boys have historically abounded but been lacking in most markets for girls. For example, Real Madrid’s women’s squad will include youth teams from the Under-16 to Under-19 age groups. At the federation level, FIFA is supporting doubling the number of FIFA members’ associations that organize youth leagues by 2026.⁸² FIFA is also encouraging the playing of football in schools by girls, which should create a pipeline of future women players. Its goal is to increase the number of women playing football to 60 million by 2026.⁸³

The bottom line

The most important lesson from all this is that women’s sports has immense potential value, not just in monetary terms, but also in terms of what it signals for gender parity. For women’s sports to fulfill its potential, however, requires action by all interested parties:

• Broadcasters should continue to invest in women’s sports. Women’s events may be particularly attractive to public service broadcasters in markets where they are no longer able to compete successfully for rights to men’s elite sports. There is a vast difference in the cost: Men’s events in major countries may cost over a billion dollars per season, while women’s events are still often willing to trade coverage for rights.

• Women’s teams should slipstream men’s teams, but also keep their distance. Creating a women’s team within an existing successful franchise best known for its men’s team provides instant brand recognition and can also provide immediate access to facilities. Women’s teams can also replicate existing rivalries, offering up local derbies (such as Atletico Madrid versus Real Madrid or Liverpool versus Everton), historical rivalries (such as the Los Angeles Lakers versus Boston Celtics), regional tournaments (such as the Ryder Cup), or national rivalries, which are innumerable. But women’s teams should also make sure that they stand apart when it comes to negotiating sponsorships and TV rights so that that women’s sports becomes valued in its own right, and becomes more investable as a result. Sports franchises should hire specialists to sell sponsorship rights—they will have the experience and savvy to maximize value. Further, women’s teams should capitalize on the additional flexibility they have on building digital presence and relationships with fans. They are in a position to negotiate contracts that are not as restrictive as for many of the men’s teams. Women’s teams can build a 1:1 relationship with fans via social media and streaming platforms that may be harder for men’s teams, whose primary fan interaction is via broadcast TV.

• Video content creators should consider the value of female athletes’ stories. There are many epic stories to be told of women who triumph despite adversity. The first woman to run the Boston Marathon, the winning Japanese and US Women’s World Cup teams from 2015 and 2019, and Lindsey Vonn’s four skiing World Cup championships are just a few of many fascinating stories, pivoting on a foundation of relentless challenge and striving for excellence.

• Significant women’s events should take place in the largest stadiums available. Women’s sports has proven its ability to draw tens of thousands of attendees if there is sufficient awareness and if there is ample tension about the outcome, such as major trophies being at stake. (In 2021, of course, this recommendation applies only in markets where matchday gathering is possible.)

• Sponsors should capitalize on their amazing opportunity in women’s sports. Not only are women’s sports sponsorships a great value relative to those for men’s events, but they are likely to appeal to female customers and staff members as a signal of commitment to positive changes in society. Women have significant buying power, and sponsorships can help develop their fondness for brands. Sponsors should also consider that both men and women watch women’s sports (as well as the converse); thus, it makes as much sense for male-oriented brands to sponsor women’s events as for more female-focused brands. Women’s teams should also consider that they have the ability to define how they would like their relationship with sponsors to work. Men’s teams have already be in long-term contracts with partners that lock them into specific category definitions, and possibly outmoded notions of how the partnership should work.

• Sports apparel vendors can explore greater involvement in women’s sports. Sponsoring women’s sports may be of particular interest to sports apparel vendors, which earn revenues of about US$80 billion per year, of which women’s apparel accounts for about US$27 billion. As one retail leader characterized this industry’s historical approach: “I think for a long time, athletic brands said, ‘We can just shrink it and pink it and that will be good enough for the female consumers.’”⁸⁵ Interestingly, considering its smaller market, women’s sports apparel has shown considerable innovation in recent years with the growth of athleisure, which has been designed predominantly for women.

• Sports federations at both the global and national level should set targets for female representation on boards,just as has been the case in the general business world. For example, FIFA’s goal is for all its member associations to have at least one woman on their executive committee by 2026, and for one-third of FIFA committee members to be women by 2022.⁸⁶

Change takes time, and it may take a decade, or even a generation, for women’s sports to attain its full potential. But its promise of delivering value to sponsors, investors, fans, and athletes and teams themselves is becoming more and more clear. We look forward to a world in which women’s sports has a fully equal status with men’s, in all respects.