The last few months have been big for English women’s sports. The Lionesses — the England women’s soccer team — retained the UEFA Women’s European Championship over the summer, while England’s Red Roses won the Women’s Rugby World Cup over the weekend.
However, as audiences have grown, and the games have become more professionalized, costs have gone up for women’s clubs, too.
“It’s fair to say that one of the most important dynamics right now in women’s sports is this disconnect between the visibility that we’re seeing in the sport and capital,” Aston Villa Women managing director Maggie Murphy said at Bloomberg’s Women, Money & Power event in London on Wednesday.
Photo: AP
The issue might be the trigger for women’s soccer clubs to more seriously start thinking about growing revenues, said Murphy, who joined Aston Villa in August.
“I need to make money quickly,” she added.
Billions of dollars are pouring into women’s sports worldwide, in the form of ticket sales, sponsorship and broadcast deals. The Women’s Euros tournament held in Switzerland sold more than 600,000 tickets this summer, and the teams shared a prize pot of 41 million euros (US$48.2 million), double what was offered at the previous tournament.
However, investment into English women’s soccer has been a mixed picture, with most teams either owned or significantly reliant on revenues from the men’s clubs. There are only two women’s teams that are standalone clubs, the London City Lionesses — owned by billionaire Michele Kang — and independently-run Durham.
“There’s now opportunity to just invest straight into the women’s team, rather than going through the men’s first,” said Jennifer Haskel, a lead analyst at Deloitte’s Sports Business Group. “That allows for more dedicated resources and more business growth that hasn’t been there historically outside of the US.”
The entanglement of finances for affiliated teams can lead to underinvestment in their women’s sides, experts say.
Wolverhampton Wanderers decided to not apply for promotion for their women’s team last season, concerned about the costs associated with playing in a higher division.
The women’s game has attracted recent deals. Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian purchased an 8 percent stake in Chelsea Women, which valued the eight-time Women’s Super League champions at ￡245 million (US$330 million). Aston Villa has considered the sale of a minority stake in its women’s team, Bloomberg previously reported.
“If I was an investor looking to come into football in this country at the moment, I’d certainly be considering women’s football,” said Holly Murdoch, chief operating officer of the Women’s Super League. “I don’t have to invest an astronomical amount to become the best in the world, to really be put on the global stage, to be winning the Champions League.”
Multi-club ownership groups are also increasingly common in soccer, as investors seek to capitalize on growing interest in the women’s game. On Wednesday, Crux Football announced its first acquisition of France’s Montpellier HSC Feminines, while investment group Mercury13 agreed to buy a significant majority stake in Bristol City Women last month.
“We have a lot of wealthy men who put money into sports, because that’s what they do,” Murphy said. “And we have lots of cautious women that don’t put money into sports because they provide for their families. Maybe let’s just ease up a little bit and invest into our own ecosystems.”
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