OUTSTANDING: Top Women’s Football Leagues in Europe Could Reach ‘Up To £350M By 2030’

According to reports, women’s football could reach £350 million in media rights by 2030 and also be competing with most men’s sports.

If the reports’ predictions happen, women’s football would become a a mainstream sport, and potentially have more viewers than even the EFL Championship and men’s rugby games around the globe.

In an interview with Financial Times, the Chair of Women in Football (not this one), Ebru Koksal, commented on this great news:

“Women’s football will become a mainstream sport property by 2030.

“Which means that with the exception of top tier men’s football, it will be competing at the level of most sports like second division men’s football, you know rugby, cricket, tennis perhaps.”

This means the top five women’s leagues in Europe could generate up to £216 to £346 million in terms of media rights. Undoubtedly, interest in women’s football has been on the steady rise, largely due to the 2019 Women’s World Cup at France.

Following the tournament’s success, BT Sports average peak audience for WSL games was 85,000, according to FA figures released last November. The advertising revenue the women’s game will generate in the next decade if Koksal’s prediction are true will be a great addition to the sport.

Just last week, the FA said that there was no plans to introduce full time refs to the WSL as “there wasn’t enough value” in the women’s game to pay them. But they said this could change if the game was given a cash injection from somewhere.

Finally, Joanna Stimpson, the FA’s women’s professional game refereeing manager said:

“Over the next three years we plan to really increase that level of professionalism around the WSL and the Championship.

“Will that mean full-time referees in the next three years? No; potentially after that.

“We don’t know, we wouldn’t like to commit to that, but it is certainly our vision to have full-time match officials for the WSL. But we are unfortunately driven by the value of the league. If there is an injection of income from somewhere then it could change.

“[What] We want [is] to make sure we have got the infrastructure in place that when we have financial backing we can go with that,” she concluded.