Revenue and monetization of women’s sport

Television rights and sponsorship deals for most women’s sports, where they exist, are worth millions of dollars at most, with the majority being less than that value. In 2021, we expect women’s sports revenues to be well under $1 billion, a fraction of the global value of all sports (men’s, women’s and mixed), which in 2018 reached $481 billion, or an increase of 45% compared to 2011.²

Despite this, we are approaching this topic, as we believe, because we predict that women’s sports will be worth well over a billion dollars in the years to come. Its ability to generate substantial television audiences, deliver value to sponsors and attract tens of thousands of fans per event has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past decade. Fan interest is there: a recent multi-country study found that 66% of people were interested in at least one women’s sport, and among sports fans (49% of whom are women), that number rises to 84 %.³ And the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed fundamental reassessments of many aspects of society, including how women’s sports should be perceived, promoted and marketed.

In short, women’s sports are ripe for greater monetization, if certain key elements are put in place. The challenge in 2021 and beyond will be for women’s sports to attract significant audiences on television and in stadiums (to the extent permitted) consistently across multiple sports. Then the value to sponsors will be evident, which in turn should increase marketing spend and awareness. But for this to happen, the entire sports industry – federations, leagues, teams, sponsors and regulators – must invest sustainably in creating more opportunities for women’s sport to prove its commercial value.

Women’s sport is gaining ground despite obstacles

Historically, these opportunities have been rare. In some cases, the ability of women’s sport to thrive sustainably has been artificially limited. For example, in the case of women’s football in England, 53,000 people watched Dick Kerr’s Ladies beat St Helen’s Ladies in 1920. The following year, the National Football Association (FA) banned women from playing on Football League grounds on the grounds that “football is completely inappropriate for women and should not be encouraged.”4» This ban was not lifted until 1971.

Nonetheless, women are steadily gaining ground in a number of sports. For example, the 1900 Olympics were the first with female participation, with 22 women out of 997 athletes; in 2012, the United States and Canada Olympic teams included more women than men.⁵ It wasn’t until 1967 that a woman ran the Boston Marathon for the first time, 70 years after its creation.⁶ In a dozen years, the first woman to run a marathon in less than 2 hours 30 minutes did so during the New York Marathon.⁷

In sports where men’s and women’s games receive relatively equal marketing support, their commercial impact has been roughly equivalent. Tennis, where prize money at Grand Slam events is the same for women as for men, is arguably the best example of this. In the United States, television audiences for tennis grand slams – a major driver of pay-TV subscriptions and advertising revenue – were slightly higher for women than for men. Indeed, tennis is the only sport in which female athletes were among the top 100 highest-earning sports stars in 2019.

Over the past decade, women’s sport has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to attract a large audience. This catalyzed increased interest in bidding for television rights and sponsorship deals. The value of these transactions is modest compared to that of men’s sports, but it is increasing. It should be remembered in this regard that revenues from men’s sport have increased considerably, particularly over the last two decades.

We hope that women’s sport has similar growth potential, especially as we believe there is considerable untapped interest in watching women’s sport. Realizing this potential is expected to lead to increased investment in women’s teams and sponsorship deals, which in turn should inspire more girls and women to aspire to compete at the highest levels.

Where does the income come from?

To date, women’s football (“soccer” in the United States) has enjoyed the largest television audiences. The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France generated a record audience: a total of 993 million people watched on television, with a further 482 million accessing it via digital platforms. The final alone was watched live by 260 million viewers, including 14.3 million in the United States, a country notorious among men for lagging behind most other countries in popularity soccer. Indeed, the 2019 Women’s World Cup final was more popular with American viewers than the 2018 men’s final, with the women’s match attracting 22% more audience.8

Also throughout the 2019 tournament, individual playoff matches generated significant audiences in terms of absolute size and audience share. The average live audience per match of 17.3 million viewers was more than double the average of 8.4 million viewers per match for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada.⁹ Surprisingly, the majority (61%) of viewers were men,^ten illustrating the broad appeal of women’s football.

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup semi-final between the United States and England reinforces these statistics. In the United Kingdom, 11.7 million people watched the United States beat England in this match, which was just over half of the total television audience at that time. This number set an audience record for a women’s football match and made the match the most watched program in the UK in 2019 at this time of year.¹¹ For its part, the United States contributed an additional 7.4 million viewers to the same match, despite it being broadcast live on a weekday afternoon in American time zones.¹² Adding viewers streaming online, the match’s total audience in the United States peaked at 20 million, making it the most-watched women’s soccer match in the United States since the previous World Cup final female in 2015, which attracted 25.4 million viewers (reinforced by its broadcast in the evening slot).¹³ To put that into perspective, neither the National Basketball Association (NBA) men’s final nor the National Hockey League (NHL) final in 2015 attracted as many viewers in the U.S. market.

It could be argued that FIFA World Cups always generate strong viewership, but other women’s football tournaments featuring national teams have also benefited from increased audiences. The United States’ three matches at the 2019 SheBelieves Cup (an invitational round-robin tournament between the United States, England, Japan and Brazil) averaged an average audience of 439,667 in the United States. This number was almost 50% higher than the average audience for US Major League Soccer (MLS) men’s matches during the opening weekend of the season.¹⁴ And even niche audiences for women’s football are growing. In the United States, the first match of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in 2020 brought together 572,000 viewers, an audience record for the NWSL by far.¹⁵

The story is much the same for women’s tennis. In fact, in the United States, the viewing figures for the US Open women’s tournament were higher than those for the men’s tournament. In 2019, the US Open women’s final (with an American player) averaged 3.1 million viewers per match, far more than the 2.8 million viewers who watched the men’s final (without an American ), which was the most watched men’s final. since 2015.¹⁶ In all Grand Slam tournaments in 2018, two of the women’s finals had higher ratings in the United States than the men’s.

There is no shortage of other women’s sports either. From cricket to netball, many women’s teams enjoy strong viewership, particularly when the national team is playing (see sidebar ‘Women’s sports attracting more and more viewers’).