Growing Women’s Football Demand

Julian Hadwiger / Sascha L. Schmidt / Dominik Schreyer - July 15, 2024

Women’s football is experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity, capturing the attention of fans and businesses alike. This growth is evident in two remarkable developments: the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup seeing record-breaking viewership, showcasing an increasing global interest in the sport; and investment and sponsorship deals both reaching new heights, reflecting the sport’s growing commercial potential.

Developing women’s football
 

The world of football has recently become more diverse, with women’s and men’s teams merging to form integrated clubs. And some have made headlines, with their matches breaking previous attendance records. Consequently, some governing bodies have started drafting policies to accelerate integration and further increase interest in women’s football. And the rationale behind these efforts is clear: integrated clubs can make use of their established brands to raise awareness for all-female teams, thereby attracting new and previously uninterested stadium visitors.

Promising anecdotal evidence

Recent anecdotal evidence suggests this strategy has worked well in Europe. In Spain, for instance, FC Barcelona Femení sold out the men’s stadium, Camp Nou, setting a new world record of 91,533 spectators. Similarly, France’s Paris Saint-Germain and Germany’s Werder Bremen recently hosted matches in front of 43,255 and over 20,000 spectators respectively. And the UK-based Arsenal Women Football Club, currently ranked the thirteenth most “in-demand” football club, announced that Emirates Stadium—with a capacity of about 61,000 seats—will host eight Women’s Super League and three UEFA Women’s Champions League matches during the 2024/25 season. Even if these examples point into one direction, there is still a lack of comprehensive empirical evidence.

Women’s football teams in integrated clubs can attract larger stadium crowds

We analyzed a dataset of 1,506 games played over eleven seasons in Germany, France, and Sweden before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Noticeably, however, this dataset does not support our initial hypothesis that women’s teams in integrated football clubs (i.e., “integrated women’s teams”) attract larger crowds per se. Instead, it points to the opposite, mirroring existing anecdotal evidence on the low stadium attendance demand for men’s reserve teams.

While this may seem like disappointing news for sports associations and leagues promoting the systematic integration of men’s and women’s football teams, hope is not lost. In fact, we found that integrated women’s teams can attract larger crowds within a particular season, albeit not automatically. To make this happen, executives running integrated clubs must proactively unlock any anticipated synergy effects, such as brand spillover. For instance, temporarily relocating the women’s team to the home stadium of the men’s team can boost attendance through enhanced communication and promotions. On its own, however, making that move would simply not be enough.

The bigger picture

These findings lead us to another important consideration: to grow the women’s game, executives should manage their women’s teams as more than just ancillary or secondary teams, thereby allowing them to develop their own identity. Otherwise, forced integration policies, even if formulated with the best intentions, might backfire.

Literature reference

Research on the demand for women’s sports is scarce. Despite promising initial findings, there is a noticeable lack of comprehensive empirical support that can definitively determine whether integrated women’s football teams truly attract larger crowds. Intriguingly, this reflects the general state of empirical literature, which has, to date, largely neglected women’s sports. 

This article is based upon the following study:

- Hadwiger, J./Schmidt, S. L./Schreyer, D. (2024): Integrated women’s football teams can attract larger stadium crowds, in: European Sport Management Quarterly, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2024.2347287