After a month-long football festival, the curtain has fallen on the ninth FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. It achieved surprising success, breaking attendance records at stadiums and viewership on TV screens, thus elevating women’s football to a higher level. The name of Spain is engraved on the trophy, which was better than England in the final match 1 – 0, becoming only the fifth nation to win the championship title in the 32-year history of the competition.
Namely, the first Women’s World Cup was held in 1991 in China, with barely 12 teams participating, while this championship saw the number of teams grow to 32. The first championship was won by the USA national team, which has claimed the world champion title three more times. Norway has won the championship once, Japan once, and Germany twice. This time, neither of the former champions reached the final match, which is a good sign showing that other teams are developing and progressing, and that the concentration of talent is not limited to just a few countries, which is always good news for the sport.
Breaking Records
Although there was fear that the expansion of the competition would affect the quality of the game, fortunately, this did not happen. Many matches were surprisingly close during the group stage, and previously contested teams, such as the host Australia or Colombia, reached far into the knockout phase of the competition. The final between England and Spain illustrates how much women’s football has progressed in recent years. In both countries, attendance at women’s matches has surged. For example, last year, the UEFA Women’s Champions League match between Barcelona and Wolfsburg was watched by an incredible 92,000 spectators, the highest ever at a women’s football match, and likely at any women’s sporting event.
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This year’s final gathered 75,784 spectators at the Sydney stadium, and the competition was attended by around two million fans in total, 600,000 more than the previously most attended women’s World Cup. The average attendance at matches was around 30,000 fans, compared to 21,000 at the 2019 World Cup in France. FIFA’s chief women’s football officer Sarai Bareman stated that attendance exceeded all expectations and that the ‘momentum is unstoppable.’
Still a Gap
Attracting a record audience, the tournament has sparked hopes that women’s sports competitions will be able to bridge the growing financial gap compared to men. According to consulting firm Deloitte, the highest-earning women’s teams in world football accounted for only 0.1 percent of total club revenues in the 2021/22 season. Spanish captain Olga Carmona, who scored the winning goal in the final, plays for Real Madrid, where the women’s team generated revenue of 1.4 million euros in the 2021/22 season according to Deloitte, while the men’s team with our Luka Modrić earned 713.8 million in the same season.
As for the broadcasting rights for the Championship, there were also issues, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino threatened nations with ‘blackout’ of the World Cup if their broadcasters did not increase their bids. According to FIFA, broadcasters from Britain, Spain, France, Germany, and Italy offered only between one and 10 million dollars for the rights to broadcast World Cup matches, while for the men’s championship, rights are sold for between 100 and 200 million dollars. The question now is whether the huge audience that followed the World Cup can secure larger broadcasting rights and sponsorship deals for national teams and domestic clubs, which are necessary to maintain significant interest beyond major tournaments.
– Women’s football is still in its early stages, and therefore investments are needed – said Lisa Parfitt, director of Women in Football and co-founder of the sports marketing agency The Space Between.
