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It’s Past Time for Soccer Broadcasters to Commit to Gender Equality

Today’s guest columnist is Romy Gai, FIFA’s chief business officer.

The growth and interest in women’s football in recent years has been incredible, and long overdue. The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 was a catalyst for change in terms of TV audience, as a combined 1.12 billion viewers tuned into official broadcast coverage across all platforms, with the final between the USA and the Netherlands becoming the most watched FIFA Women’s World Cup match ever. Furthermore, over 1 billion viewer hours of FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 consumption came from the host region of Europe, 43.7% of the global total.

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This year, we have continued to see records broken across the world. Attendance figures in continental championships such as the Women’s EURO and African Women’s Cup of Nations have made history. In October, the women’s England-USA match, a friendly, became the fastest sellout for an England game at the new Wembley Stadium.

FIFA’s commitment to accelerating the development of women’s football is clear, investing in a variety of football development programs supported by its commercial revenues and initiatives.

In the current four-year cycle leading up to the next FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand next July, we have invested $1 billion to support our strategy to grow the women’s game across the world, focusing on increasing participation, enhancing commercial value and building a strong and sustainable foundation to provide more opportunities for women and girls to play football.

We know that FIFA’s sentiment towards women’s football has been echoed by many broadcasters across the world, but now we must see action. There is currently a large discrepancy between the value of rights for women’s football and what broadcasters have been willing to pay.

The recent round of bidding for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 ended without the allocation of rights in four of the five major European markets: Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In Spain the bidding is still open, but a similar outcome is expected.

This is not a case of being priced out, but rather testament to a lack of willingness of broadcasters to pay what the women’s game deserves. The data supports this.

In France, for example, the rights to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 came to 16% of the value of the men’s equivalent in 2022. Their average audience, however, was equal to 36%–significantly higher. In the United Kingdom, the value of women’s football TV rights average 2% of the male equivalent, despite audience being 20% of the men’s event viewership. Notably, the final of the Women’s EURO exceeded 50% of its male equivalent.

These figures are remarkable in themselves, but even more so given that women’s football is still at the start of its growth. Just as the quality of the women’s football is rising rapidly, so too is its popularity across the world. FIFA believes that supporting women’s football is no longer just the right thing to do from a football and social point of view, but also from an economic one. Women’s football is not a cost, but a smart investment.

Looking ahead, FIFA wants to further increase it financial commitments to women’s football, and 75% of FIFA’s 211 member associations rely on FIFA support to conduct grassroots activities. But if such efforts are to be sustainable, we need the support of all of those involved in football’s ecosystem, including clubs, member associations, partners and—crucially—broadcasters.

We know the opportunity for women’s football is there. Now, together, we need to capture it.

Gai joined FIFA as its chief business officer in March. Prior to that, he served seven years as chairman of AWE International and worked at Juventus FC in several roles, including chief revenue officer and marketing director.

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