Women’s sport and Covid-19 – light at the end of the tunnel for sport's underdogs!

elysahubbard
Jul 22, 2020
8 min read

Updated: Jul 25, 2020

Let’s cast our memories back what feels like two years ago to the 8th March, 2020 - International Women’s Day. And what better way to celebrate it than by seeing a monumental, record breaking 86,174 fans watch Australia take on India in the Women’s T20 World Cup Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, followed by the victorious Australians celebrating on stage with pop icon Katy Perry. One of the last days of sport and entertainment as we know it – the nostalgia!

Pre Covid-19, the world of women’s sport was at a real watershed moment, making significant strides in reaching the dizzy heights of male sport. In 2019, Brit and fan favourite Dina Asher-Smith emphatically won the first global sprint title by a British woman and England’s Lionesses saw 11.8m people watch their FIFA World Cup semi-final against the USA. To put this into context, the men’s Six Nations, FA Cup Final and Wimbedon achieve similar numbers. And numbers talk.

England’s astonishing Commonwealth Games netball Gold in 2018 sparked a surge in participation with 320,000 women playing netball fortnightly pre-Covid. Furthermore, this year’s ground-breaking ‘gender-aligned’ The Hundred presented women’s cricket with an unparalleled opportunity to be showcased alongside the men’s game on both the BBC and Sky and with equal levels of marketing investment committed, acknowledging the ECB’s backing of women’s cricket as their "biggest growth opportunity".

To add to the mix, the USA women's soccer team’s discrimination trial demanding equal pay has been well documented. The USA men’s team is ranked 22nd and sees less viewers than their no. 1 ranked female counterparts, who have won gold in the last two World Cups. Success on the global stage and broadcast figures - meaning commerciality - are usually two criteria used to support sport’s traditional gender pay disparity. In this instance, in particular, the commercial argument does not add up.

It is no wonder that before this 2020 ‘sporting apocalypse’, there was a sense of prejudice being shattered and women’s sport gaining more momentum than ever, progressively featuring more in the mainstream media and becoming ‘the norm’. Women’s sport was seeing an unprecedented amount of fans, participants and corporate investment before the arrival of Covid-19. Now, there is a dreaded expectation that women’s sport could be relegated to the side-lines once again, facing a generational loss thanks to Covid-19, if sports stakeholders, struck by cost cuts, fall back to ‘default’ mode.

It is clear that men’s sport still commands media narrative and takes priority in the sponsorship landscape and calendar. Examples of this are the decisions made early on to end the Women’s Super League (football) and Premiership rugby seasons, whilst in-depth plans were being conjured up to enable their male equivalents to resume. There could not be more of an anti-climatic summary than 2nd place Chelsea crowned WSL Champions over 1st place Manchester City due to a points per game ratio, with 45 games remaining. In further, stark contrast to the male game, a severely underfunded Liverpool Women’s team was relegated to the Championship.

A report by McKinsey on Covid-19’s impact on the sports industry grouped women’s football alongside youth and futsal in the sport’s ecosystem, due to the incessant chatter about the return of men’s football and the elephant in the room surrounding an apparent lack of plans for female and grassroots football. What people see in the media affects lives. Seeing is believing. It allows young girls to understand that it is normal for women and girls to be active, skilful, gritty and determined and to dream of making their country proud. It normalises athletic, healthy body shapes. It will be a tragedy, both for sports fans and culturally in wider society, if stubborn gender stereotypes hold back half the UK’s population and English sport loses the next Dina Asher Smith, Lucy Bronze and Tammy Beaumont.

Money talks, and admittedly, these decisions have been made linked financially to the cost of coronavirus testing, the need for bio secure venues and committed TV coverage fees, with the Premier League in particular facing huge broadcast losses if ‘Project Restart’ fails. The UK government insists sports teams undergo full Covid-19 testing three times a week in order to meet the relevant safety requirements to return to action, costing male Premier League teams £30k per week (based on squad and staff numbers of 50). This is, inevitably, affecting the return of women’s sport, which receives significantly less financial backing.

In a recent survey by Women in Sport and Goodform of 2,000 sports fans (2/3 of whom were men), 79% agreed it was important that the momentum in women’s sport continues with 69% feeling there is a risk of women’s sport suffering more from the pandemic. 56% were more likely to watch women’s sport if it was the first to return. One of the first live (male) sports to return, the PGA Charles Schwab Challenge, saw a 160% audience growth from 2019 for its first day of coverage. This highlights the huge opportunity that has been missed by the premature WSL cancellation for women’s football to gain new fans, starved of real-time sports content - especially if games were featured on terrestrial TV.

Bar the The Rose Ladies Series aired on Sky and sponsored by Justin Rose (due to the golfer feeling it unfair he could return to golf two months before female golfers), it is looking likely that professional sport will be a female-free zone stretching into the Autumn, especially on terrestrial TV. Out of sight, out of mind – out of pocket? This in itself is concerning for women’s sport. Female athlete salaries are, on the whole, significantly lower than men's, and as major sponsorship deals are fewer, they are economically not as well positioned to handle the sports world’s current 'Time Out'.

Furthermore, women’s sport has been disproportionally affected during the pandemic despite the fact there was a period with no live sport to tilt media coverage in a certain direction. A Siren Sport survey reported that women’s sport received only 8.4% of all mainstream sports coverage in Australia in April, down from around 10%. This is astonishing, when, a recent survey by True North Research, gauging the emotional connection Australian fans have with their teams, showed a women’s sports team crowned first for the second consecutive year, with only one men’s team in the top five.

This demonstrates how the pandemic has laid bare the huge discrepancies between the way male and female sport stories are told – and who tells them – in mainstream and online spaces that are central to fan engagement, shaping sport’s wider, cultural impact. This is likely due to a disparity in marketing budgets assigned to women’s teams versus their male counterparts, as there is no question that female athletes have proved themselves as significantly more accessible to the media and sponsors than male athletes – a key string to the bow of female sport’s recent commercial successes.

As sport stands on the start line of a new era, it is important for sports stakeholders to consider the role that women will play in sport’s recovery. Sport is going to look very different post-pandemic, and the decisions made now will influence its future. This is where a balance must be found between short-term and long-term profits and sustainable growth amongst fans who pay sport’s bills in subscription fees, match-day tickets, merchandise and sponsorship commodities. It is also key to remember those who volunteer at the grassroots level of the game and are instrumental in developing the stars of tomorrow.

Given its long history of silence and exclusion, women’s sport has not had the same time or opportunities as men’s sport to prove itself economically. That does not mean it cannot meet these heights with a little bit of backing. The past five years show how rapidly women’s sport has evolved with limited economic resources at its disposal. A 2018 Nielsen survey found that women’s sport was regarded as more progressive, inspiring, family-driven and cleaner than men’s sport, with 46% of respondents wanting more women’s sport shown on free-to-air TV. Women’s sport has demonstrated it can engage with fans in a different way to more traditional sports sponsorships, with global audiences significantly growing, providing a clear opportunity for sport stakeholders to build on for the future.

From a wider, societal point of view, it is not just at the elite level where progress has been reversed. Sport England has reported that the gender gap amongst those active has widened since the lockdown, after seeing significant improvement over the last few years thanks to campaigns such as ‘This Girl Can’ and the rise of women’s sport in the media. The Goodform survey found that women are more anxious and cautious about returning to sport/ the gym than men, with only 77% open to returning as soon as guidelines permit. More visibility of women’s sport would inevitably improve this figure.

It is more important now than ever that short-term financial gains do not take priority over longer-term culture shifts that will come with visibility for women’s sport and consistent investment at lower price point than typically required by male sports. The main challenge post Covid-19 is for brands, governing bodies and the media to believe in their pre-Covid strategies, helping improve sport as an entity for all. This will be a leadership challenge as budgets and jobs are squeezed, but from a business point of view, why wouldn’t you want to be more accessible to women who make up more than 50% of the population? If there are no female athletes in our newspapers, social media feeds or on TV, an entire generation of new (money spending) fans and players risk being lost.

Fortunately, significant announcements over the past few weeks have offered hope of an imminent comeback for women’s sport, signalling a postponement of the rise of women's sport, rather than a cancellation.

Football powerhouse Real Madrid has recently acquired a women’s team and Kelly Simmons, the FA’s Director of the Women’s Professional Game, confirmed that the FA will be giving the women’s FA Cup "every chance of returning and being completed this season". The Premier League has stepped in to offer English women’s football £1m to enable the 2020-21 WSL season to start by covering the cost of coronavirus testing kits and has also confirmed their appetite around acquiring the tournament from the FA. Perhaps this pandemic-enforced break will actually ensure this deal is finalised sooner.

In cricket, the ECB has shown real commitment towards women’s cricket from the start of the pandemic by investing substantial sums to secure a tri-series against South Africa and India (who have now unfortunately had to withdraw) in September. The ECB has also confirmed that female The Hundred salaries will not decrease (unlike their male counterparts who will receive a 20% reduction in 2021) and followed through with their plans of awarding 40 domestic regional contracts, even though the landscape of women’s cricket in 2021 is uncertain. The first match of 2019 at the Oval is taking place this evening between Surrey and Middlesex Women. Furthermore, MCC, 'the holder of the laws of cricket’ based at Lord’s, ‘the home of cricket’, has announced the appointment of Clare Connor as its next President. A historic first female appointment for the Club, whose Pavilion doors only opened to women for the first time twenty years ago.

This week, the Rugby League World Cup confirmed the Men's, Women's and Wheelchair events will run simultaneously starting in October 2021 and most significantly, will all receive the same participation fees showing true equality and value.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the current fear and intrepidation around women’s sport is for nothing and 2021 sees a revolutionary new chapter with the delayed launch of The Hundred and a gender-aligned Premier League kicking off shortly after? Add to that a new, invested partner of the RFU’s Premier 15s, dedicated to helping women’s rugby union emulate football and cricket’s success, capped off with a Gold medal for Dina Asher Smith in the Olympics!

2020 might be a bit of a non-event, but 2021 is sure to excite. Let’s all rally around the underdogs and help women’s sport seize the moment!

Sources:

Women’s sport and Covid-19 – light at the end of the tunnel for sport's underdogs!

Recent Posts

Comments