So what?

World Seven’s is a clear example of the value women’s sport offers rights holders, brands and partners – value that doesn’t appear in commercial forecasts.

For example:

• audiences that brands can’t reach elsewhere
• freedom to try activations mainstream sport won’t allow
• athletes with strong or developing personalities
• opportunity to own the category before the market catches up
• higher engagement and crossover into wider culture through female athletes (evidenced by our SportOnSocial research)
• more meaningful community ties that make brand activation feel genuine
• credibility that can’t be bought once the space fills up
• athletes who truly enjoy your events!

The question for every rights holder is straightforward: ‘What is your women’s sport actually offering and are you selling it right?’

What does this mean for rights holders and brands?

Women’s sport properties and athletes are distinctive and should be recognised as such to draw their true value, both commercially and in terms of their impact on audience engagement, flexibility and brand opportunities.

There are various ways to draw out that value.

1. Same sport, different opportunity

Your men’s and women’s sports play the same game, but they attract different audiences, cultures and opportunities. Simply copying and pasting a men’s strategy for women will yield a fraction of the results.
Effective marketing begins with understanding your audience beyond demographics and stereotypes by focusing on their values and behaviours to create a distinctive brand strategy.

The opportunity: women’s sport opens up audiences and brand territory that men’s properties have largely monopolised. With less competition and highly engaged fans, the right strategy now can create a lasting advantage over competitors.

2. Make hard choices

Once you know your audience, develop your strategy. Where will you play and how will you win?
Roger Martin’s choice cascade gives you a framework of five key components:

• winning aspiration
• where to play
• how to win
• capabilities
• management systems

By working through the framework, you will achieve a specific market position. This will guide your team on what to prioritise and what to avoid.

The opportunity: women’s sport is still evolving. Rights holders and brands that make bold, focused choices now, before conventions sets in, will own the most distinctive positions in the market.

3. Bring your strategy to life

Strategy without execution is what we like to call ‘cobwebber’ – something that sits in a file and never gets used. When it comes to women’s sport, tactical execution falls within two key areas.

• Athlete personality: to build personal athlete brands, rights holders need to identify potential, cultivate supportive environments, and give athletes room to express their individuality. Brands must ensure the chosen athletes align with their values before any investment.
• Cultural crossover: female athletes move across sport, fashion, music and lifestyle in a way few male athletes can. A targeted content strategy that maps where your athletes already have influence transforms organic cultural relevance into measurable audience growth.

The opportunity: women’s sport gives brands access to trusted, culturally connected and commercially underpriced athletes. Invest in the infrastructure now and watch those assets compound.

4. Change how you measure success

If you use the same metrics to compare women’s and men’s sport, the former will always look like it’s underperforming. This is due to but measurement issues rather than the reality.

Men’s sport metrics, e.g. broadcast reach and stadium attendance, were designed for a product with a century of scale behind it.
In contrast, women’s sport fosters community spirit which, although smaller in scale, is more engaged, loyal and responsive. Educate your stakeholders, redefine what success looks like, and produce a scorecard that captures quality of connection alongside volume.

The opportunity: women’s sport presents something increasingly rare: an engaged community that hasn’t been overexposed to commercial messaging. The signal-to-noise ratio (the ratio of meaningful message to commercial clutter) is far higher than in men’s sport, so brands that measure connection over eyeballs will find the returns justify the investment many times over.

5. Invest now
The risk is in investing too late. Pioneering deals in women’s football, rugby, basketball and netball have been made but (outside the big four), many women’s properties remain significantly undervalued relative to their audience reach. This gap won’t last.

The opportunity: the future stars of women’s sport are already here, often without the commercial support they deserve. Brands that act early will secure positions that latecomers simply won’t be able to afford.

6. Be patient

Women’s sport might not initially produce the same results as men’s. Successful brands are those that showed up first, were credible, and stayed.

Brands and rights holders need a long-term communications plan in any partnership; a strategy abandoned after one season isn’t really a strategy.

The opportunity: women’s sport rewards patience as audiences become increasingly loyal. The commercial space is less crowded, and brands that build consistent presence now will be the default choice when those audiences reach their full spending power.

If you’d like further information or advice on how to explore the value of women’s sport.

Get in touch