Women's Sport Takes Off

Broadcast

pp18-22 Autumn 2021 https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pnum=18&edid=0928ec6a-ed38-45bd-ad50-b73d2ee88eb0&isshared=true

The hard yards that women’s pro leagues have put in over decades to convince sponsors to invest and stations to air their competition is finally paying off. The only surprise is what took the broadcast world so long to wake up.

In 2018, Nielsen Sport research showed 46% of the general population would watch more women’s sport if it were accessible on free TV.

In 2019, the BBC unveiled a raft of women’s sport coverage under its Change The Game initiative. Cynics suggested that properties like the Women’s Ashes, Netball World Cup and Solheim Cup were some of the only live sports the cash-strapped Corporation was capable of bidding for yet ratings for the FIFA Women’s World Cup were record breaking.

England’s semi-final loss to the USA saw 11.7m tune in – on par with figures for this Summer’s Uefa Euros. Even more encouragingly the gender split of the total tournament audience was split male 62% / female 38%.

“Momentum has been building over the last few years in exposure to women’s sport and, on the football side, the success of the World Cup in France was enormous,” says Sara Butler, managing director, Shoot the Company.  “Generating a bigger male audience was amazing. Sustaining and building on that interest is now the goal.”

While the BBC received an impressive ‘appreciation index score’ of 81 for the quality and presentation of its Women’s World Cup coverage, Carys Owens, Whisper Cymru MD says broadcasters have a big role to play to further upgrade the standard of women’s sports production.

“Historically women’s coverage has been pushed to the side. When rights contracts are signed between leagues and broadcasters too often the women’s game has been an add-on.”

She believes positive action is now being driven by sponsors who have seen the value in allying brands with men’s and women’s sport franchises.

“There is a definite value and an interest from a sponsorship point of view to drive gender equality which has only been apparent for the last 2-3 years,” she says.

Major brands such as Visa, Pepsi and Nike are understood to have convinced Uefa to unbundle sponsorship of Women’s Champions League and Euros from the Men’s competitions. The result of that is a global four-year broadcast deal with DAZN for the women’s game starting with the 2021-22 season.

As part of this landmark agreement, and to further grow the sport, DAZN will share coverage with YouTube that will make the competition live and free for fans around the world for the first time.

DAZN have talked about “the incredible ripple effect” that more eyes will undoubtedly have on the game. A similar impact is anticipated for the Barclays Women’s Super League. Its deal with Sky Sports and the BBC will see three year deal from the 2021-22 season sees games from every round of fixtures shown live across the two broadcasters with all the other games streamed live on the FA Player.

WSL game changer

The deal is reported to be worth £7 million per year with three-quarters of the money distributed to the clubs in the top flight and the rest given to clubs in the second-tier Championship, serving to bolster the sustainability of the professional game.

“This is a big moment in the history of our national game,” says Cathy Long, policy lead at the charity Women in Sport. “For the first time women’s football will be properly established in the public psyche.”

Butler calls the deal “a game changer which finally made the industry sit up and listen.” Shoot the Company is the main content partner for Women In Football. Following on from last year’s #WhatIf campaign, the new campaign it is in charge of poses: Women are at the heart of the men’s and women’s game and are here to stay, but what are you doing to support them?

“The aim is to reach football fans that might traditionally have been more alpha male,” Butler says. “There are audiences who have not really looked at the women’s game and are quite dismissive of it. That is key to our creative – to make it clear you are missing out if you are not onboard.”

As with ‘Outraged’, Uefa’s anti-discrimination doc produced by Shoot the Company featuring Paul Pogba, Megan Rapinoe and Ruud Gullit, it is the profile of on-screen talent which holds the key.

“We want to work with contributors who have a huge social following and who are followed by an audience that wouldn’t necessarily be thought of as being a key supporter of women. Groups like Women in Football and their male allies are absolutely key to driving this and breaking down that barrier of women’s sport being inferior to male sport,” Butler insists.

Owens also emphasises the importance of male ambassadors to engaging interest in women’s sport. She highlights rugby union pundit Ugo Monye as a role model in this regard.

Changing perceptions

“We can’t get away from the fact that there are audiences who refuse to see women’s sport in the same light as men. One way we can challenge that is to help showcase female athletes as superhuman women, as personalities and aspirational individuals. That’s down to storytelling. Across the board it’s about showing that women can compete and entertain.”

She cites W Series: Driven, the Whisper-produced six-part documentary series showing behind-the-scenes of the first season of the all-women racing series led by Catherine Bond Muir and supported by 13 times Grand Prix winner David Coulthard. Whisper is also host broadcaster for the eight-race motorsport which airs on Channel 4.

Other content supportive of live women’s events include Rebel Girls – a BBC series profiling young sportswomen and DAZN’s Women's Champions League campaign film ‘We ALL Rise With More Eyes’ directed by fashion photographer Alyssa Boni and voiced over by UK rapper FLOHIO. This conveyed what DAZN calls its long-term vision “of the unstoppable impact more visibility will have on taking the women’s competition to new heights.”

Sky Sports treatment of the WSL will be given the full weight of lengthy build-ups and reaction to all live matches, plus a daily narrative of the league across Sky Sports News and its digital platforms.

Nonetheless there is work to be done. Owens calls out sports bodies for their failure to adequately fund the women’s game.

“If they are not fully finding female teams then the competitive gaps widen [between teams and between male and female formats] and the bigger the gap the harder it is to make the competition entertaining.”

Back to back success

For Butler it also comes down to money. “The entire sports industry needs to invest to create more opportunity for women’s sport to prove its commercial work. We need to close the gender pay gap so women athletes are earning what men are earning. That helps turn them into stars that will drive up the commercial value of women’s sport across the board. In turn that pushes broadcasters to invest more as they seek new audiences.”

She stresses, “We’ve got to start monetizing female sports in the same way we monetize male sport.”

There are lots of positive signs. The back to back staging of male and female The Hundred cricket matches together with broadcast on Sky Sports and the BBC is widely considered a success. Similar linking of male and female elite events include Arsenal V Spurs in a pre-season friendly with WSL teams kicking off immediately after the PL game.

Diverse representation in front of camera is also important. “Our philosophy is ‘if you can see it you can be it’,” says Owens. “I am passionate that female representation on screen is not tokenistic. They are there because they are know what they are talking about. Alex Scott, for example, is leading the way from being soccer star to pundit to anchor [of Football Focus].”

Whisper emphasises behind the scenes gender equality too. Owens, who was in charge of digital content for both the Lions and Springboks of the Men’s Lions Tour of SA, is one of several female executives at the indie including chief operating officer, chief creative officer and both heads of production.

“I started out as an editor when it was rare to see female editors and you’d get comments from male staff along the lines of ‘are you work experience?’” she relates. “Those one liners can break you or drive you on. Are these attitudes changing? Yes, 100 percent, but there’s no denying the industry is still male heavy.”

Gender equality

A new wave of sports are favouring gender equality. Racing series Extreme E has pairings of male and female drivers. The success of such formats at the Tokyo Olympics (from triathlon and 4x400 relays to judo and archery) has been a revelation.

Women’s Olympic disciplines are not yet on a par with men who had nine more total events than women in Tokyo (meaning they have 27 more medals despite comprising 49% of the 11,000 athletes). The blue ribbon event is still designated as the Men’s 100 Metres final.

The IOC will likely fast track more mixed competitions and the trend may impact on the national investment and broadcast coverage of mixed gender events.

One to watch is competitive video gaming, a hot candidate for inclusion at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Although gaming has a huge female following there’s a stigma that it appeals mainly to lads,” says Rakesh Dhall, Media & Partnerships Director at agency 20ten. It has been tasked by Unilever among others to position brands (like Batchelors) in the eSports space.”

20ten is also working with McLaren to bridge the gap between the traditional motorsport and sim gaming. In both cases, Dhall believes females are key: “We need female pioneers of change and the next icon of female sport could come from gaming.”

To promote an e-racing competition from McLaren Racing and Logitech G, 20ten produced a digital series featuring gaming pundit and YouTuber Elz 'the Witch' and is preparing a follow-up fronted by broadcaster Seema Jaswal, recently the face of ITV’s Euros coverage.

“There’s not enough gender equality or diversity in sports and Seema, as the first Indian female to cover football on UK TV, is a real breakthrough. Our goal is to raise the profile of female gamers because they are as important - if not more so - than male gamers.”

A 2020 NewZoo survey found men are likelier to be Esports enthusiasts than women but the female Esports audience is more likely to spend money on esports products.

“If people see women influencers such as Elz and Seema play the game, other young women will follow suit," Dhall says.