Wen 丨 slightly larger reference, author 丨 zhi tide, editor 丨 wilderness
"The hustle and bustle dissipated in two days." A sports journalist who has been in the industry for nearly 20 years told "Slightly Larger Reference".
At that time, the women's football team had just won the Asian Cup after 16 years, and the excitement and excitement swept the country. Soon, the short video platform appeared on the women's football team to return to the country, the team was welcomed by the middle of the road, women's football, became the hero of the women's volleyball team. More people are calling on social media for better treatment for women's football and for them to continue to raise their eyebrows.
In addition to emotions, the current situation of women's football is not optimistic about professionals. The above-mentioned person said that at present, there is no reporter who specializes in running women's football in China - which shows its unpopularity. Affected by the epidemic, the operation of professional football matches is not optimistic, and in the 16 Chinese Super League clubs, the majority of them owe wages, and the income of women's football is even more dismal.
A one-game victory is clearly not enough to turn things around. Although the girls have repeatedly staged the miracle of turning the tables against the wind on the green field, in the commercial arena, the women's football team has only silence.
01, gap
Up to now, the triumphant Chinese women's football team has received at least 23 million corporate incentive commitments. In addition, Alipay launched the "Ten Years and Ten Billion" women's football support project in 2019, which is still running.
Judging from the data, the Chinese women's football team is not short of money.
FIFA's FIFA Benchmark Report: Women's Football released in 2021 shows that the average investment of Chinese women's super clubs is about 1.85 million US dollars, and the average salary investment ratio is 56%, so the salary investment of a single club is about 1 million US dollars, which is used to pay the full salary of more than 25 players and other staff.
An insider close to the Football Association revealed to the media that there is no problem for female footballers with better performance in the national team to earn millions a year. After 2018, the income level of Chinese women's football is almost the highest in the world.
High investment promotes a high level, which in turn leads to good results. But at least so far, the dilemma of commercialization has not been solved.
The Chinese Women's Football Super League is the most typical epitome.
LeEco once bought the broadcast rights, naming rights and commercial development rights of the Chinese Women's Football Super League for 10 million yuan in 2015 - just in the same year, the rights of the Men's Super League were sold for 8 billion yuan, and the Olympic Power obtained the broadcast rights of the Chinese Super League in the five seasons from 2016 to 2020, with an average of 1.6 billion yuan per year, which is 160 times that of women's football.
Pictured: Chinese Women's Football Super League
The drama is that this money, the women's football team still can not get hands on it later. In 2017, LeEco suffered a break in the capital chain and failed to pay the copyright fee as agreed, and the cooperation between the two sides was terminated. The Women's Super League also did not find a broadcaster to take over, 2017-2018 fell into a state of no one for two consecutive years, before the start of the 2017 Women's Super League, female footballer Wang Shuang regrettably said: "The Women's Super League has started, but unfortunately you can't see it!" ”
Before the Asian Cup triumph, there were probably not many spectators who "wanted to see" the Women's Super League – although this was the highest level of women's football league in the country.
Wang Shanshan's younger brother once said, "I often go to the scene to watch football matches, men's football is basically crowded, but women's football matches are really very few people, one hundred and ten people." ”
Former women's football international Wang Dandan revealed to the media in 2010: "Men's football tickets for a game can sell for 50 yuan a piece, and the tickets for the women's Super League are generally given away, but even the white gifts are rarely seen." "Even searching on the Internet today, you can still see information about free tickets for the Women's Super League.
According to the FIFA Benchmark Report: Women's Football, the average attendance of the Chinese Women's Super League in 2019 is only 1840 people. In the same year, the average number of spectators per game in the men's Chinese Super League reached 23,464.
Chart: The average number of seats per game in the Men's Chinese Super League
The disparity in commercialization is ultimately reflected in player income. The annual salary of Chinese men's football international Luo Guofu, a player in the Guangzhou team of the Chinese Super League, reached 40 million yuan, which is higher than the sum of the income of hundreds of players in the five women's football clubs.
In international football, the income gap between men and women's football is even more exaggerated. According to UN Women, Argentine star Lionel Messi earns $84 million a year, including salaries, bonuses and various business contracts, nearly double the combined annual salaries of a total of 1,693 female footballers in the world's top seven mainstream leagues.
02, money bags
The difficulty of commercialization is not a dilemma unique to Chinese women's football.
On 26 May 2021, FIFA released the first women's football development report in its history. It mentions that 70% of women's football clubs operate at a loss, and only 13% of clubs have annual revenues of more than $1 million.
With an average annual income of US$1.1 million, Chinese Women's Super League clubs rank second in the world, second only to the Japanese Women's Football League. And its average operating expenses are as high as $2.2 million. According to domestic professionals, the annual investment of Chinese women's football clubs is more than 20 million, and some even as high as 40 million.
It's obvious that you can't make ends meet.
In contrast, the Chinese men's football team, which is not competitive enough on the field, the money bag is still (once) rich.
In 2019, before the start of the epidemic, the minimum dividend income of a single club in the Chinese Super League also exceeded 60 million yuan – which was basically the same as the total income of all teams in the Women's Super League in the same period. In addition to dividends, Chinese Super League clubs also have tickets, jersey sales, team sponsorship and other income, such as the Chinese Super League champion Guangzhou Evergrande, whose club revenue in 2019 is about 900 million yuan.
Pictured: Sun Wen (front row, third from right) generation of Chinese women's football team
Tickets can't be sold, resulting in an unhealthy income structure for women's soccer clubs. Unlike men's football clubs, which mainly earn from matchdays and broadcasts, about 42% of the revenue of women's football clubs comes from sponsorship, 26% comes from the Football Association, and the game day revenue, which is mainly ticket revenue, accounts for only 8%.
This can be understood as the Chinese women's football club takes the advertising model, and the money bag mainly relies on the "golden father"; the men's football club takes the big membership model, and the money bag relies on user charging and renewal.
The choice of "golden father" to put on women's football also requires courage and guts.
In 2003, the U.S. Women's Soccer Major League, which had been in existence for only three years, announced its dissolution. Hendricks, then chairman of the board of directors of major leagues, explained: In the United States, major league women's soccer has fallen into an unprecedented dilemma, almost no one watched the broadcast, and it was impossible to attract the attention of sponsors. Only two sponsors are willing to contribute $2.5 million this year, but for the alliance to stay alive, there must be eight such sponsors.
20 years later, there are only a dozen sponsors of the Chinese women's national football team.
Because of the cold globalization of women's professional football leagues, Sun Wen once thought in 2015, "Some projects do not necessarily have to take the road of professionalization", but fortunately, in recent years, these situations have improved.
Major League Soccer later received sponsorship from well-known brands such as Budweiser, Nike, and MasterCard. In Europe, the Barcelona women's football team also receives more than 3.5 million euros a year from Stanley Baide, which can pay the salaries of all players in the women's first team.
Ratings at major women's soccer tournaments began to rise. In the 2019 Women's World Cup, the average number of viewers in the final between the United States and the Netherlands reached 82.18 million, an increase of more than 50% compared with 52.56 million in the last World Cup in Canada, becoming the highest-rated Women's World Cup event in history.
FIFA also announced that it will double its investment in women's football projects from the original plan of $500 million to about $1 billion in the 2019-2022 cycle.
03. Ornamental
The just-concluded Women's Asian Cup final set a new viewership record, with a total of about 85.91 million viewers watching the Chinese women's football team in front of the TV.
In the first half, many fans wondered: Is this a professional football game? Is this the final? Of course, in the second half, the Chinese women's football team dispelled these doubts with a beautiful counterattack.
Pictured: Women's Asian Cup champion
But it is undeniable that in the level of competition, confrontation, ornamentality and other aspects, compared with men's football, women's football has a natural weakness. This will affect the audience's enthusiasm for watching, which in turn will affect the commercial value of the team.
Australian women are known for their physical fitness and tough playing style, and are called by many fans as one of the most similar teams in women's football. But in the face of real men's football, the Australian women's football team still lacks the strength to cope. In May 2015, in a friendly match preparing for the Olympic Games, the Australian women's football team lost 0-7 to the Newcastle Jets U15 team.
The sources of the power gap are twofold.
The first is the difference in physical fitness. Female athletes have excellent endurance but lack explosiveness. In recent years, the average running distance of the top women's football teams has approached the level of men's football, but there is still a big gap in high-speed running.
In the Champions League men's and women's football matches, the men's team averaged 107 meters per game at a speed of more than 27 km/h, while the women's team was only 20 meters. During the viewing process, fans will naturally feel that the running speed of the women's football game is too slow, the pace is too slow, and it lacks visual impact.
Pictured: Messi in the Champions League
At the same time, there is also a gap between the technical base of women's football players and men's football. Champions League statistics show that the success rate of men's football passes is 79.4%, and the women's football team is 71.55%. The average number of times the ball was lost was 17 times per game, higher than the men's team's 12 times. This is also in line with the subjective impression of fans that "women's football has many mistakes".
The gap in strength between women's soccer teams is also even greater. In the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, Germany swept Saudi Arabia 8-0, setting the largest point difference in the history of the Men's World Cup. But the same point difference can only be ranked fifth in the Women's World Cup. Double-digit scores are common in women's soccer matches, and one-sided situations often make the game lose its suspenseful viewing value.
The gap in strength between the teams is too large, indicating that the development of this project is still in its early stages, and the women's football projects in many countries are still in their infancy, or even in the blank stage, and a considerable number of countries compete in semi-professional or even amateur women's football teams.
The ornamental gap brought about by the gap in competitive level is the root cause of the difficulty of commercialization of women's football. At least for now, it is difficult to fundamentally solve this problem based on the victory of the Women's Asian Cup alone.
Someone once made a crooked move.
In 2004, then FIFA president Blatter publicly stated: "I would like to see a more feminine, sexier football game." He said he wanted women's footballers to dress more fashionably, such as tighter shorts.
Blatter's proposal was rejected by opposition, but today, 18 years later, Blatter is in jail, and this statement is often discussed.
In fact, in sports competition, there is another important factor that affects the viewing experience: competitive spirit.
It is the tenacity of the women's football girl when she is 2 points behind, and it is the most difficult leap for Gu Ailing to challenge herself. They have all succeeded, but what is more precious and inspiring than the results is the athletes' sportsmanship that dares to challenge and does not give up easily. It can reach more people across interests, ages, nationalities and hobbies.
Nielsen once released a market report saying that women's sports are considered more inspiring than men's sports, "compared to men's sports, women's sports are considered more progressive, less money-oriented, more family-oriented, and more pure." ”
At a time when the world is in a wave of pessimism, what could be more valuable than such a positive spirit?
The hilarity of women's football may just be a flash mob. But it could also be the beginning of another new story.