5 mistakes Marketers must avoid in women's sport

The do's and don'ts of women's sport sponsorship & marketing

Women’s sport is growing at an unprecedented rate and is providing an opportunity for sponsors to tell compelling stories that enhance brand love and for right’s holders to attract fans in new ways. While it is an exciting time to be a part of women's sport and a great space to be creative and push the boundaries there are some things that are a definite no-go.

Avoid making these 5 sponsorship and marketing errors

1. View women’s sport as a box-ticking exercise

Women’s sport is a powerful platform that can be leveraged to grow fans and ignite brand consideration with consumers. It’s not a token project or a CSR campaign to get involved with so you can include a picture in your annual report or press release that ticks-a-box. Women's sport is on an exciting journey which sponsors and marketers can help shape but they have to be meaningful contributors in this partnership and add to the journey and wider ecosystem rather than detract from it.

2. Compare the differences of men’s and women's sport

There's no shortage of comments like "women’s tennis isn’t as exciting to watch as men’s tennis, women’s soccer is like men’s soccer but as if they are playing under water and women's sport isn't as good to watch".

Women's tennis isn't as exciting as men's

Comparing the differences between the men's and women's game or making out that the women's version is inferior or sub-standard are baseless and unhelpful to everyone. Yes, versions of the game have different qualities i.e women’s tennis has longer rallies and women’s soccer has less fights and diving than men’s. Each game and version has different attributes, personalities and relate-ability which can be enjoyed by different people. These elements need to be celebrated rather than compared as who is to say what is ‘better’ or right to different fans. I for one enjoy watching the women's AFLW over men’s AFL as I find it far more relevant with less argy-bargy.

3. Try to replicate the definition that men's sport has created

Sport may have started out as being male dominated but don’t think that the historical view of sport is how women’s sport should be portrayed or has to be the definition for sport in general. As well as some amazing traits, there can be some undesirable traits in the men’s game including toxic macho-ness, fights, racism or homophobia. The women’s game offers some extremely positive attributes over the men’s game like being inclusive, diverse and clean as well as having a different target audience being more family focused with a more even female to male audience split.

Celebrate and market this rather than feel you have to follow the path that’s been set by the men’s game. For example, it’s not mandatory for a women’s athlete to be shown faced off against her competitor looking confrontational just because this may be how a male athlete has been marketed in the past. 

4. Treat women’s sport as an add-on

Don't become a sponsor of women’s sport if there isn’t a genuine desire or fit to be involved. Many sports have historically bundled the women’s game in as 'value-add' to the men’s or forced sponsors to take on the women’s game in order to access the men’s equivalent.

Women’s sport should be considered on its own merits, fully planned out to maximize fan experience and return on investment and not be activated as an after-thought. An example of this is the government backed, Qatar Airways being a sponsor of FIFA Women's World Cup. FIFA have global partners across all their World Cup properties but for a tournament that embodies women’s empowerment and lgbt advocacy, it’s clearly a misaligned sponsorship that wasn’t at the forefront of any deal or thinking. 

5. Comment or focus on appearance or sex-appeal

An obvious one you would think but we better include it as a reminder after witnessing women's world footballer of the year, Ada Hegerberg be asked to Twerk when receiving the most prestigious award in football and more recently middle distance runner Eilish McColgan who was body shamed after stating that she was in the best shape of her life heading into the World Champs with trolls saying she was too skinny. She said she had always been that body shape and these type of comments were costing female athletes sponsorship opportunities.

Women’s sport is full of strong, powerful, resilient and inspiring athletes who spend their lives training and competing to win. They are not objects whose bodies, looks or anything else outside of their sporting ability is there to be judged or commented on. Female athletes are not manly, not weak, not fragile, not too big, not too muscular or too skinny or anything else other than just athletes. Even if it’s borderline just don’t even go there!

It’s an exciting time for brands to be a part of women’s sport so get creative, get inspired and avoid the above mistakes to produce some award winning campaigns that deliver for fans, your business, the property and the sport!

For more insights on women's sport sponsorship, follow me, Rebecca Sowden on Linkedin or sign-up to the Team Heroine newsletter.

Published first on Team Heroine - Champions of Women's Sport Sponsorship.