Levelling the playing field is in our feet, bums and eyes...

Here’s one… With the FIFA Women’s World Cup now in the rearview mirror, will we see the seeds of change we need to maintain the fundamentals of growth in women’s sport? Or to be more straightforward, is this the point we see more women watching more women’s sport? Allow me to elaborate…

On the lead into the World Cup, every news article doing the rounds highlighted hopes that the World Cup would inspire a new generation of young female players. Rightly so. It was a huge moment in time in which to show a new crop of aspiring football players what the top of the game looks like; up close and personal. The irony of this rhetoric however, is that without a seismic growth in the volume of female viewership of women’s sport, hopes of equality and opportunity in the long run are still unclear.?

The issue we face in levelling the playing field for women in sport stems from the sad truth that we simply didn't have the abundance of women's sport, nor the associated media platforms as we’re seeing now. The impact generation after generation was that the concept of sport consumption was focussed on male examples; in other words, women didn’t watch women's sport… because they couldn't.

While we can’t change the past, what frustrates me about the present is that the drive for balance in professional sport is a narrative focussed on the financial fundamentals far more so than the behavioural/attitudinal fundamentals… On paper, the issue of parity is a relatively simple fix; pay female athletes the same as male athletes. It’s a fix we’re seeing more and more but the glaring issue in all of this is what drives the financial fundamentals in the first place. Eyeballs…?

Look at the economics of sport and you’ll see how simply revenue tracks appetite from consumers; whether in stadia, or on screens. As such, balancing the books in excel overlooks the sheer fact that not enough women watch women's sport… Given approximately 50% of operating revenues come from commercial partnerships, we’re effectively asking brands to pay double but not necessarily double impacts.?

We live in an instant-gratification world where problems need to be fixed overnight. It doesn’t work like that… We’re plastering over issues and not addressing the causes in the first place. Until we can focus on this truth, we’re unlikely to see the long-term impacts we need in order to have a rich and vibrant future of opportunities for women in professional sports.?

This is a behavioural challenge. The unprompted intent behind our actions. It's not going with the flow, but leading the charge...        

My view is simple. We’re a “transitional generation”. We need to adopt behaviours that make female sports consumption ‘normal’ in the eyes of young girls and boys. We need mums on the couch with the girls over to watch the game, so daughters grow up with fond memories of watching sport with mum. This isn’t to say that time with dad at the game is wrong, far from it, but we need the balance.?

Early signs of growth were seen at the opening fixture of the 2023/24 A-Leagues game between Sydney FC and Westerns Sydney Wanderers at Allianz Stadium last Saturday. With 11,471 fans through the gates. Compare that to previous attendance of 3,680 during the Finals Series of the 2022/23 season, and things are looking good!

I believe we will get to a future of balance and opportunity in sport, but I also believe it’s going to take all of us collectively striding forward, and not leave things to the bean counters crunching numbers.