Heroine Hit February

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

Money magnet

Women’s sport was a money magnet in February. Here are 7 noteworthy money moments:

🏀 WNBA raise $75m in capital at a $1b valuation from some killer investors

⚽️ US Soccer pay $24m to the US women’s team in their equal pay battle

🏆 Football Association commit to ‘signifiantly’ increasing women’s FA Cup prize money

🏏 Women’s Cricket World Cup double winner’s prize money

📺 NCAA women’s basketball tournament (last years viral weightroom dispartiy) sells out of advertising inventory on Disney network

💲 NWSL Rookie of the year, Trinity Rodman (daughter of basketballer, Dennis) scores the league’s biggest ever contract (still only $1.1m for 4 years though)

🏁 Busch Light Beer commit $10m to sponsor every women driver in Nascar

Gotta-know

💼 Linkedin become a sponsor of UEFA Women’s Euro which takes place in July and will leverage their “Make work work for women” proposition

🏄‍♀️ Fast Studios launch a 24-hour dedicated FTA ad-supported women’s sport channel and includes LPGA and World Surf League content

🏟 Women’s sport attracted a record 33m viewers in the UK last year with The Hundred cricket & WSL football pulling in 11m NEW women’s sport viewers.

🎫 Angel City FC have sold 14,000 season tickets before playing their first ever match on 19 March

🏁 Caitlyn Jenner establishes a women’s motor racing team for the W Series and will be boss of Jenner Racing which has already signed reigning champ, Jamie Chadwick

Brand’s role in women’s sport storytelling

Sport stories don’t get better than this…..

New Zealand Football Fern, Rebekah Stott made her national team return at the She Believes Cup last weekend after announcing she was in remission just 4 months ago. She had undergone agressive treatment for stage 3 Hodkin’s Lymphoma which she was diagnosed with less than a year ago.

While Rebekah’s story is one of the most inspiring possible, there are many amazing women’s sports stories out there and brands can play a part in helping tell them to inspire and connect with fans.

When brands tell these stories it not only enhances the whole women’s sport ecosystem but also helps showcase what their brand stands for. A win-win.

In many women’s sport where players and their stories may not be well known, it can be a case of story ‘finding’ to uncover the gems.

Obviously for a journey such as Rebekahs, stories have to be told in the right way - authentically and with sensitivity.

They should be powered by brands who genuinely want to ‘enable’ these stories to be told as opposed to turning them into an overt product or taste-less brand ad.

Check out two of my all-time favourite women’s sport content stories that have been powered by sponsors - Inspirational overload warning:

Nadia Nadim
⚽️ An afghan refugee whose dad was killed by the Taliban and went on to become one of the world’s best footballers.

One Moment Can Change The Game x Visa

Jodie Ounsley
🏉 England Rugby Sevens player who is deaf.
My Deafness is a Super Power x HSBC Remarkables

Beyond the equal pay celebrations

I am the first to celebrate a win for women’s sport so a big whoop to the $24m pay out from US Soccer to the US women’s team - a step in the right direction.

But here are some interesting points to note behind the celebrations:

👉 There is no guarantee of equal pay moving forward. US Soccer’s ‘pledge’ is just that, a pledge to equalise pay but which is dependent on the US men’s team agreeing to share their World Cup earnings as part of a ratified Collective Bargaining Agreement.

👉 The original lawsuit was for $66m, 3X what was settled once you take out the $2m player’s career & charity allotment.

👉 Hope Solo (ex US goalkeeper who has a reputation of having a colourful personality) who claims she led the original equal pay battle against US Soccer had some interesting tweets that indicated it wasn’t as big a win as the key USWNT icons made out. Check out the full Twitter thread here.

FIFA World Cup pay gap getting bigger

While a company’s gender pay policies shouldn’t be based on where revenue comes from, FIFA’s World Cup prize money discrepancy was at the core of the US soccer pay fight. 

“Those payments, set by FIFA and exponentially larger for the men’s World Cup than the corresponding women’s tournament, are at the heart of the pay divide”.

Total Prize Money:

2018 Men’s World Cup = $400m (36 teams)

2019 Women’s World Cup = $30m (24 teams)

Total Viewership:

2018 Men’s World Cup = 3.57b (64 games)

2019 Women’s World Cup = 1.12b (52 games)

Interestingly viewership of the men’s tournament was just over 3X as much as the women’s tournament (& with more games) yet the men’s total prize money was over 13X greater than the women’s.

In fact the prize money for the next World Cups will see the pay gap actually become worse.

The gap from the last World Cups was $370m. The next world cups will have a pay gap of $380m.

If FIFA want gender equality as one of their core values, they need to close this gap - which they have the ability to do given their financial reserves sit at over $1.5b (even after Covid).

Barriers to media coverage

It’s easy to blame the media about the lack of women’s sport coverage and while there are systematic issues within many news rooms, women’s sport can also be it’s own worst enemy.

The Women’s Sport Trust uncovered the below barriers that media in the UK face when reporting on women’s sport.

I have had similar feedback from journalists down-under so let’s support media so they can support women’s sport.

Check out full report here.

Activation best part of Adidas campaign

Adidas launched their ‘Support is Everything’ campaign focused on sport bras.

The campaign hadn’t particularly grabbed me at it’s launch and I felt revealing bare breasts as a component of their campaign was a bit ‘click baity’ (& I’m all for normalising women’s bodies) but I thought their “Statues” activation below ‘made’ their wider campaign.

This is why I think it hit the mark:

💡 Clever insight
“There are more statues of animals than women in London”

💬 Conversation worthy
Iconic location, visual, well executed & PR/share-able

🦸 Deeper personal stories
They heroed these women’s stories via information and QR codes on the statues plus created video executions that delved into the problem and amplied Reach

✏️ Brutally simple
Instantly understandable

💪 Actual ‘support’
It highlighted the issue of support (lack thereof) and took action to support women athletes (& activists)

Champions League peaking

Football’s prestigious club league tournament, the UEFA Champions League is hitting it’s final stages and is pulling out all the tricks.

👑 Queens of the Pitch documentary series

FC Barcelona, the reigning champs have just released a 6 part documentary series called Matchday:‘Queen’s of the Pitch’ which follows Barça women's football team on their winning season.

You can watch the first 2 x 30 minute episodes here on Barca TV+.

✍️ Ada Hegerberg personally signs absence letter

While creating “mock absence letters” so staff can watch major sport events instead of going to work is nothing new, Ada Hegerberg went one step further for her quarter final Champions League game against Juventus. The 2018 world’s best player was personally signing them for fans - only in women’s sport!

Check this awesome clip out and get your own employer absence letter here.

Queen of the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl may not feature any women in the match but Serena Williams has established herself as the Queen of Super Bowl.

She featured in not just one but two Super Bowl ads this year; for Michelob and home gym, Tonal and in previous years for Nintendo Switch, Bumble and Michelob Ultra (again).

Better still, she was litearlly cast as the GOAT in Michelob’s star-studded commercial here.

At $7m per 30 second ad spot, her presence is proof of the importance that female athletes play in sport and culture.

Here to help

If you are an agency, sponsor, sport organisation or broadcaster that needs help with your women’s sport strategy or project then get in touch rebecca@teamheroine.com