Success of Women's World Cup can't hide financial gap with men
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[August 21, 2023]
By Andrew Cawthorne, Kate Holton and Aislinn Laing
STOKE, England/MADRID (Reuters) - Just a few years ago, pre-season
training for Stoke City's women sometimes included painting the
dugout and removing litter from the pitch at a former working men's
club in central England.
Now, in line with a global boom in women's football, they are being
paid, receive instructions from a full-time coach, enjoy the same
multi-million pound training facilities as the men - and no longer
moonlight as rubbish collectors.
"In such a short time, we've seen massive changes," said 24-year-old
midfielder Molly Holder, in her third campaign at Stoke. "We go
early to use the gym, we have access to the physio, 20 minutes in
the video analysis room, maybe some darts and food with team mates.
We feel part of Stoke."
That professionalisation has underpinned the success of the ninth
Women's World Cup, which ended on Sunday with Spain beating England
by a single goal in a final that pitted the two European countries
with the strongest domestic leagues against each other.
Attracting record crowds and television audiences, the tournament
buoyed hopes that the women's game can start to bridge the yawning
financial gap that exists with the men.
According to consultancy Deloitte, the women's teams of the highest
revenue-generating clubs in world football accounted for only 0-1%
of total club revenues, in the 2021/22 season.
Spain's captain Olga Carmona - the scorer of Sunday's deciding goal
- plays for Real Madrid, where the women's team generated revenues
of 1.4 million euros in the 2021/22 season, according to Deloitte.
That compared with the Real Madrid men's teams revenues of 713.8
million euros in the same season.
TV BLACKOUT
In broadcast rights, the women's game has struggled to compete. The
FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, threatened Europe's "Big 5"
nations with a TV World Cup blackout unless their broadcasters upped
their offers.
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According to FIFA, broadcasters from Britain, Spain, France,
Germany and Italy offered only $1 million to $10 million for the
right to show World Cup games. That compared with the $100 million
to $200 million paid for the men's tournament.
"We had to arm-wrestle some people to take the TV deals," said Jill
Ellis, the coach who led the United States to back-to-back World Cup
triumphs in 2015 and 2019 and who now leads FIFA's technical
committee.
The question now is whether the vast audiences that tuned in to the
World Cup can lead to larger broadcast rights and sponsorship deals
for national sides and the domestic clubs that are needed to sustain
interest outside of major tournaments.
"Women's football domestically is still in start-up phase," Lisa
Parfitt, director of Women in Football and co-founder of sports
marketing agency The Space Between, told Reuters of the game in
general. "So it's a matter of investing."
England's success in Euro 2022, when 17.4 million people tuned in to
watch the Lionesses beat Germany in extra time, has shown what can
happen when a team's success becomes part of the national
conversation. The viewing figures did not include those watching in
big fan parks and pubs.
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Soccer Football - FIFA Women's World Cup
Australia and New Zealand 2023 - Final - Spain v England - Stadium
Australia, Sydney, Australia - August 20, 2023 Spain players
celebrate winning the World Cup final REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
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Players like Jill Scott, Chloe Kelly and Ella Toone
have built up huge social media followings and signed multiple brand
sponsorships, keeping their names and the game in the spotlight.
GAME CHANGER
Kieran Maguire, at the University of Liverpool, said the England
national side then surpassed expectations by selling out Wembley
stadium twice for matches outside major tournaments.
But he said the domestic Women's Super League (WSL) had a tougher
challenge as it, like other sports, has to contend with the monster
that is the men's Premier League, which dominates the media and
broadcast schedules as the world's best players line up for the
likes of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
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Still, attendances at the WSL rose by 170% on the year before to an
average of 5,222, with a record of 47,367 fans set by Arsenal. The
number of women registering to play soccer in general rose by 16%.
The women's game also has something different to offer.
According to Simon Chadwick at the Skema business School in France,
major brands have always advertised around the men's game because
they know they will reach millions of viewers and make a return on
their investment.
But both Chadwick and Carlota Planas, a Spain-based women's'
football agent representing several World Cup players, argued that
the women's game now offers the values of tenacity, resilience and
togetherness, which can appeal to advertisers.
"(The players) have had to fight a lot, overcome many barriers,
break many ceilings, to get to where they are," Planas told Reuters.
"That dream, that enthusiasm, that we have fought for and achieved,
is what excites people and makes them hooked."
Back in Stoke that determination is on display, both among the newly
semi-professional women's team and on myriad pitches in nearby
villages where eager parents cheer on their daughters.
"Hopefully, after this World Cup, more and more people are going to
wake up on a Sunday and think 'Our local team are playing, let's go
and watch them'," Holder said.
(Writing by Kate Holton; additional reporting by Nick Mulveney in
Sydney and Helen Reid and Suban Abdulla in London; Editing by Matt
Scuffham)
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