28/06/2024

The fandom is growing. But the industry isn’t keeping up, argues Meg Anderson.

“Put women’s sports on TV”.

It doesn’t sound like a radical demand.

But when footballer Georgia Robert wore this written across a t-shirt on BBC’s I Kissed a Girl, it went viral. 

Coverage and viewership of women’s football has risen exponentially in the last decade and brands are catching on.

But women’s sport only receives 4% of sports media coverage and brands aren’t investing enough to move the needle. Countless victories and highs are deflated by shattering moments where women’s football is sidelined, belittled and even forgotten altogether.

If the industry, the media and brands were truly held to account, we wouldn’t have had to listen to Harry Kane saying “we haven’t won anything as a nation for a long, long time”.

It wouldn’t have taken public outcry for Nike to sell the England Women’s national goalkeeper jersey. And a t-shirt saying “Put Women’s Football on TV” wouldn’t have fuelled a fire of polarised debate on TikTok.  

In fact, the most famed campaigns for women’s football either use male football players as a prop for attention, or remove women altogether.

Orange France’s ad grabbed global attention by superimposing popular French male footballers onto real footage of female players to prove how exciting a women’s game can be. 

Dark Horses used AI to create Hope Sogni, the first female candidate to run for FIFA president. Hope was able to represent the voices of prominent women in football to speak up against inequality in the industry - crucially without putting any real-life individual at risk of systematic retribution or discrimination, like many before.

Adidas’ ‘Play Until They Can’t Look Away’ placed Alessia Russo, Lena Oberdorf and Mary Fowler atop a pedestal of their male counterparts to increase visibility.

The fact is, the fandom is growing and the industry isn’t keeping up.

Without decent coverage, fans are making their own content on TikTok - where consumers create what they want to see. With over 3.7BN views of #WomensFootball, TikTokers aren’t waiting around for the media to catch-up.

FIFA boss Gianni Infantino asked women to “pick your battles”, but between fandom and brands effectively investing in women’s football, we can tackle them all. To the point where campaigns for women’s football don’t need to use technological backflips, where “…they’re actually women!” isn’t a bombshell anymore, and where the sentence “put women’s sport on TV” on a t-shirt would be nonsensical. 

Brands should be chasing the power of fandom and creating content, partnerships and movements that stoke that enthusiasm. 

So go where the fans are.

If you can keep up.