Future of Football: With record-breaking attendances and TV audiences, women's football clubs are seeking new ways to tap into that growth and appetite as they pursue a wider fanbase through a variety of creative ways
Tuesday 25 July 2023 19:00, UK
From double headers, partnerships with TikTok to overseas ventures, women’s football clubs are pursuing and exploring innovative ways of reaching and exploring new audiences.
The success of the Lionesses last summer, which saw a record-breaking attendance for a Euros final - men or women - with 87,192 fans packed inside Wembley Stadium, illustrated the appetite for the game, and clubs are looking to jump on the euphoria and identify how they can tap into a new spectator market.
Indeed a global study from WSC Sports, a provider of AI-driven sports content, revealed on the eve of the Women's World Cup that growth in avid followers will increase 57 per cent from the 929m from the last edition in 2019 to 1.472bn this year.
Closer to home, research gathered from the Women's Sport Trust, with broadcast insight from Futures Sport and Entertainment, found that audiences watched an average of 45 minutes per viewer of WSL matches on Sky last season, up seven minutes from the 2021/22 campaign.
The study showed that a unique audience are watching women's football, one which doesn't tune into the men's game, with 8.4m watching live WSL football in 2022 but not attending live Premier League football, while 6.8m were watching both.
Tammy Parlour, the Women's Sport Trust co-founder and CEO, told Sky Sports: "Women's football is in a totally different space than it was five years ago, with record breaking broadcast deals, huge increases in viewership and increasing attendances - there's nothing to suggest that that won't continue to maintain and to rise at the same time, coverage hours have increased I think it's 778 per cent and viewing hours 724 per cent between the 2017/18 and the 21/22 season, so it's quite challenging to maintain that level of growth."
Yet further research and analysis is required to establish why the women's game is building this unique audience.
"We're only at the beginning stages of understanding the women's sport fans in any great depth, we're sort of scratching the surface as far as understanding that," Parlour added.
"Year round there's a small audience that only watches women's football. The interesting thing was when we compared the difference between the Euros, the Women's Euros and the men's World Cup, and it pointed to something quite unique there that everybody got really excited about but the reality is we don't know why that is.
"Was that unique to it being the men's World Cup being in Qatar and all the issues that were around that? Was it the fact that England women made the final [in the Euros]? Or is there something specific to women's football? Like I said, we're only scratching the surface as far as that goes.
"We've got a huge advantage of being behind in our progress as far as a lot of the women's sport compared to the men's game. What it does do is open up opportunities to make different decisions and I think there's a lot of people wondering what those decisions would be, be that based around competition structures and tournament's fan experience, different investment models, marketing strategies. Some sports like cricket have shown great innovations like the Hundred and and using that to drive women's sport to the next level."
Clubs are thinking outside the box. Take the example of third tier side Burnley Women who are building and growing a Generation Z (people born between 1996-2010) audience through a first-of-its-kind Tik Tok partnership.
Now two years into the tie-up, which includes streaming all of Burnley's home matches on the social media platform, the club hit one million views on TikTok in April this year.
TikTok strategic partner manager for sport, Sanjit Sarkar, says Burnley have become their "first creator football team" as they look to help them generate a new audience.
"The first match was streamed in August 2021 after the men's Euros. For us it was a really unique opportunity to see how regular live sport performs on TikTok. It's our first step working in women's football specifically in Europe and the first football team in the UK to regularly live stream their matches," Sarkar told Sky Sports.
"It's an incredible story because they became our first creator football team and every single home match was live streamed on TikTok. The partnership blossomed from a natural conversation with them to initially bring Burnley onto the platform and help them achieve their goals of generating a new audience and expanding their digital footprint and in turn cultivate a larger following."
When Turf Moor staged its first Burnley Women's contest at the end of the season, almost 3,000 supporters turned out to watch them beat Liverpool Feds 2-1 to finish third in the FA Women's National League North.
"From both TikTok and Burnley's perspective, the deal has been immensely successful," Sarkar added. "Fans from all over the world have been able to consume this content and Burnley Women's matches have collected more than a million views over two seasons leading to a massive increase in the profile of their women's team.
"Burnley have also made huge commitments to the women's team by increasing their own investment, scheduling home games at Turf Moor and generating increased sponsorship revenue on the back of viewership they have gathered on TikTok."
Aside from streaming home games, behind-the-scenes videos which give an insight into the personalities and friendships between players have further connected fans to the club.
"We were thrilled by the team's engagement and the adoption of the platform. We worked with the players and treated them like TikTok creators. We ran education sessions on how to get the most out of the platform, everything from trends, to editing techniques like stitching and dueting which helped the player get comfortable about creating content. There's a lot of creativity within the team, and once they got the hang of the platform they started to produce some great content."
With no TV rights deal outside the top flight in English women's football, the opportunity is there for platforms to explore innovative ways to find new fans - and Sarkar believes broadcasters need not fear this or other future ventures with other clubs.
"The common goal here is to support women's football in the UK, grow the fanbase and inspire the Leah Williamson's of the future," he said. "For us at TikTok we are bringing the women's game to a global audience through short, snackable pieces of digital content - and in some cases like Burnley, with live streamed games. The more ways supporters are exposed to and can engage with the women's game is not only good for the sport and players but for broadcasters and platforms alike."
Tottenham opted for an approach more commonly used in rugby when they staged their first double-header at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 20.
The relegation-battle contest with Reading in the WSL followed the men's final Premier League home game of the season against Brentford and nearly 6,500 of the 61,000 plus fans from the men's fixture watched the 4-1 victory that preserved their spot in the top flight.
While it was their second highest home attendance of the season, it was a significant drop off the near 22,000 fans who watched Spurs lose 2-1 to Manchester Utd at the main stadium in mid February.
Yet former England international Eni Aluko believes this is another strategy clubs could adopt going forward to avoid fixture clashes between the men and the women and to embrace the 'one-club' mentality.
"I think that (having more matches at men's stadiums) is obviously a solution in terms of exposure to a wider fanbase," Aluko said earlier this year.
"I actually think that there could be opportunities where you play double headers in the same stadium - a bit like the boxing undercard - where the women's game would precede the men's game, fans would get to the stadium early and then stay and watch the men's game."
For football finance expert Kieran Maguire, there are other areas women's teams could explore to boost revenue and acquire a larger fanbase at the same time - and that clubs don't always need to look at ticket sales.
"In terms of the finances when it comes to the women's game, the benefits the women's game can learn from the men's game, it's not just ticket sales which are a route to future success" Maguire told Sky Sports.
"We've seen clubs such as Bournemouth, who generate just over three per cent of their revenue from ticket sales, so getting fans in at a right price point doesn't have to be too much of an issue, building the brand of the clubs is another thing I think the women's game can learn from the men's game, and how they can grow those brands is taking the game overseas."
Back in 2019, Liverpool women joined their male counterparts for their pre-season tour of the United States, travelling alongside Jurgen Klopp's squad and training at the same facilities. It provided exposure for the women's side and presented the club as one team rather than two.
Last summer, Manchester United took part in the AMOS Women's French Cup and competed against European heavyweights Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain. Tottenham, meanwhile, headed to the States for their first-ever intercontinental tour to compete in the Women's Cup in Louisville, Kentucky.
'Building the brand of the clubs is another thing I think the women's game can learn from the men's game, and how they can grow those brands is taking the game overseas."
This year's Women's World Cup is another opportunity to showcase the best talent England has to offer and could it be that in the future clubs will be venturing to far-flung places to promote the WSL product?
As with many areas of growth in women's football, a strategic approach is required but as Parlour from the Women's Sport Trust concludes, it must also include excitement.
"I think the absolute priority has to be getting the on field product right and properly marketing and activating it - and we need to again understand more about consumption and consumption habits and what else the fan group is interested in and what grabs people's attention.
"Up until now, the industry with women's sport has pushed the idea that women's sport is inspirational and our recent research showed that it's excitement that drives fandom - that's a major pivot that the industry needs to take as well, so there's lots of room for looking at things differently."
For more Future of Women's Football stories, visit Sky Sports.com and the Sky Sports app
