MAGGIE PAGANO: Abundant play for ladies

Whether the Lionesses win or lose to Spain tomorrow – and of course they will – women’s football in England and the rest of the UK is undergoing the most spectacular transformation, defying even the most hardened skeptics.

Seven million fans in the UK watched the semi-final against Australia.

Double the number expected to tune into the final at Sydney’s Stadium Australia, the first time an English football team has played in a World Cup final since 1966, when Germany were beaten.

That’s a long wait for a replay, but rest assured that England fans are prepared – and in style. Waitrose stocks up on extra bacon, eggs, sausages and indeed English fizz, ready for the party. Searches on brunch food websites are up 54 percent.

It’s a much-needed boost to an otherwise bleak summer for retail. VoucherCodes.co.uk estimates there will be a £185 million boost to the economy. Around 11 million people are expected to stay home to watch the final and another 3 million people will go to a pub or bar, boosting the hospitality industry. As it’s a bit early to drink – kick-off is at 11am – most of the spending will be on tea and coffee, although a few goals from Lauren Hemp will soon make that puritanism disappear.

Still, this is little compared to the potential size of the UK women’s football market. If the sport continues to grow at its current rate, experts predict the market will easily be worth £1 billion over the next decade through a mix of commercial deals, sponsorships and broadcasts. Compare that to the total value of all women’s sports for 2021 of $1 billion, and you can see just how big the UK home market could be.

The more skeptical observers like to say that the only reason there has been such a fuss over the women’s game is that the Lionesses are on such a winning streak, having won the European Championship against Germany last year. Once the excitement wears off, the game pulls back.

Yet that is not the case at all. On the contrary. Deloitte’s annual football review shows that between 2021 and 2022, revenue from broadcasts – so-called bundled packages when sponsors pay to have their brands appear on the shirts of both a club’s men’s and women’s teams – and other commercial deals increased by 60 percent .

Barclays has tripled what it pays to sponsor the Women’s Super League and the Women’s Championships. It now pays £30 million for three years, up from previously paying £10 million for three years.

Babywear company Joie recently signed a partnership with Manchester City women’s team and so on. Broadcast revenues are also on the rise with the WSL and WC recently signing an annual £8 million deal with Sky and the BBC, the highest of any professional football league in the world.

Players also earn more. The combined wages of the 12 WSL clubs were £25 million, a 37 per cent increase on the previous season. More importantly, the number of visitors to WSL and World Cup matches has increased by 200 percent.

What is also surprising is that attendance is fairly evenly split between women and men, despite the widespread belief that the women’s game is nowhere near as exciting as the men’s.

I thought so too until my son recently dragged me to a Chelsea v Tottenham women’s game, and boy was I wrong. What was also encouraging to see was the sheer number of families coming together. Ticket prices of £10 per shot are kept low to attract more fans, which is a good thing.

But despite this big increase in attendance, the average number of fans attending matches is still just 5,600 per match, compared to 50,000 for men’s matches.

Deloitte’s Amy Clarke, who specializes in women’s football, thinks that as the game becomes more professional, attendance will increase rapidly.

It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, because one of the drawbacks of women’s teams is the lack of infrastructure and there is a need for more investment in the clubs.

But that too is changing, and fast. With perfect timing, technology entrepreneur Victoire Cogevina Reynal this week launched a $100 million fund aimed at buying controlling stakes in women’s soccer clubs in Europe and Latin America. Named Mercury 13 after female pilots who were barred from participating in NASA’s astronaut program because of their gender, Reynal would be most interested in looking at English clubs first.

She clearly has a good eye for a winner.