Heroine Hit May

A monthly newsletter covering the most interesting women’s sport sponsorship, marketing & innovation

Wimbledon Mrs the mark

‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’ will be dropped from Wimbledon’s honours board.

Last year’s winner, Ash Barty was inscribed as ‘Miss A. Barty’ while men’s winner Novak Djokovic was simply recorded as N.Djokovic (no Mr).

While this is a ‘win’ for women’s sport, I’m at a loss as to why this was still happening until now.

Small things determine a bigger narrative so sport organisations with out-dated practices - get rid of them today!

Gotta-know

⚽️ FA Cup final hit a record crowd of 49,094 and UEFA Euros is predicted to generate £54m of economic activity with 250m viewers

🎾 Namio Osaka continues to change the game, leaving IMG to launch her own sports agency, Evolve

💰 US men’s soccer team agree to equal pay terms with UWSNT which include even distribution of all prize money including the lucrative FIFA (men’s) World Cup

📱 Tik Tok are taking over women’s sport, adding UEFA Euros to their Women’s Six Nations sponsorship as the Official Entertainment Platform

🏀 NBA star, Steph Curry wrote his thesis on Advancing Gender Equity in Sports which just earned him a sociology degree at Davidson

Times most Influential women still missing on highest paid list

A whopping 5 sportswomen made Times 100 Most Influential People.

⚽️ Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan & Becky Sauerbrunn - USWNT Titans
🏀 Candace Parker - WNBA Pioneer
🎾 Peng Shuai - China Tennis Icon

Rafael Nadal and Olympic skater, Nathan Chen were the only male athletes to make the cut.

Yet only 2 female athletes made the top 50 on Forbe’s Highest Paid Athletes.

Naomi Osaka is the 4th highest earner off-field behind Roger Federer, LeBron James and Tiger Woods with $58m from 20 sponsors but drops to 19th place when prize money is incorporated.

Fellow tennis sensation, Serena Wiliams sits in 31st place with $45.3m total earnings.

Sportswomen are cultural leaders and savvy brand magnets who are well overdue for increased earnings based on their athletic ability!

Guide to women’s sport imagery

Getty Images have published an imagery guide to ensure authentic visibility in women's sport.

Changing the visuals that media, rights holders and brands use is a simple yet effective way to change the perception of women’s sport.

My favourite tips:

✅ Showcase sportswomen in action rather than as passive
✅ Show sportswomen’s full range of emotions
✅ Don’t be afraid to show blood, sweat or grit
✅ Showcase athleticism & skill
✅ Showcase diversity across abilities, backgrounds, ages, body types & more

Offsiders Award

It’s the 3rd occasion in 3 months that New Zealand Rugby have said “We know we can and must do better”.

First it was their shocker International Women’s Day posts and then in response to the Black Ferns Culture Review.

Now, they are the only NZ sport organisation out of 65 to fail to meet Sport New Zealand’s gender diversity board targets and will lose funding as a consequence.

Thumbs down to NZR for picking up their second Offsiders Award in the year that they host the (Women’s) Rugby World Cup.

BBC knows a woman’s place

BBC launched this creative video gem showing where a sportswoman’s place is.

It’s on winner’s podiums, on billboards, in the history books. It’s wherever we say it is.

Why it’s clever:

1️⃣ Establishes BBC as a leader in women’s sport (regardless of what women’s sport broadcast rights they own)

2️⃣ Executionally entertaining with a clever play that pokes fun at traditional stereotypes

3️⃣ Brilliant timing, launching in football’s FA Cup Final and as we count down to UK’s huge summer of women’s sport with UEFA Euros, Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, The Hundred plus more

Aussie’s paycheck reality

The Female Athlete Project provided a reality check as to why many Australian sportswomen still need to juggle professional sport careers with other jobs in this handy sport code salary comparison table.

We welcome the news that AFLW players will receive a 97% increase in salaries next season and hope to see the likes of A-League, NRLW, Super W follow suit ASAP.

Build it properly & they will come in droves - DAZN playbook

3.6m viewers tuned in to the UEFA Women’s Champions League final and the season garnered 64m views and 12.3m unique viewers - huge!

DAZN’s innovative and supportive approach set the competition up for viewership success:

1. World-class access

Centralised global broadcast rights gave the world seamless access to the competition, addressing one of the top reasons people say they don’t engage with women’s sport - access issues.

2. Story-telling excellence

They didn’t just broadcast live games and highlights but a breadth & depth of player and footballing stories across the season.

Investment (financial & resource) in content along with sophisticated scheduling (build-up, pre-game & post-game strands) helped connect fans with the players and teams - another key barrier to women’s sport.

3. All-in

This wasn't just a token viewer-grab or PR stunt but a fully integrated and backed partnership from the get-go.

Their inspiring ‘We All Rise With More Eyes’ launch video set the tone but was followed by hundreds of pieces of shoulder content, multi-language commentary and high quality camera action.

Build it properly with good access, stories and support and they will come…in droves.

AFLW Avatar MIA

I’m loving AFL’s (men’s Aussie rules football) move with Reddit to enable fans to customise their Reddit Avatar with their favourite AFL team’s gear.

Why it’s a smart play:

👉 It provides a fun way to INTERACT with both AFL and Reddit

👉 Allows people to SHOW OFF their AFL fandom

👉 Let's people more easily CONNECT with like-minded supporters

However, it was disapointing to see AFLW weren’t included as part of this collaboration.

Whatever the rationale was behind excluding AFLW, it’s a lost opportunity that could have easily been solved with a few branding and copy tweaks and makes AFLW look like an after-thought.

Positive Vibes Tracker: The Players

Part 2 of my two-part blog series that tracked the positive sentiment around Players in NWSL’s Challenge Cup using Areto Listener is out.

Find out who was getting the love and who was receiving hater vibes HERE.

Are you an ad agency?

Hey ad agencies, are you tackling a women’s sport campaign or pitch and want help with fan insights, problem statements, creative strategy, watch-outs, best-in-class examples or more then get in touch rebecca@teamheroine.com