The women's football stadium, which is more and more concerned, has gradually shown strong commercial development potential.
This article was first published in Sports DreamWorks. "Sports DreamWorks" is a cooperative media brand of ECO Krypton, focusing on observing the news and developments in the field of sports marketing, providing high-quality content and in-depth services for brand sponsorship and cooperation.
Text / Liu He
Editor / Yin Haonan
SPORTS DREAM
01
The Battle of camp Nou
Football fans around the world have been swept away by this women's football match this week.
In the early morning of March 31, in the second leg of the Champions League women's quarterfinals, Barca women's football team defeated Real Madrid women's football team 5-2 at home to advance to the champions league semi-finals with an aggregate score of 8-3, continuing on their way to defending their title.
Beyond the spectacular game scene, the most exciting scene may be the second leg of the Camp Nou Stadium, which seated 91,553 spectators – a new world record and an absolute milestone in the history of women's football.
You know, the original women's football world record, to date back to the final of the 1999 Women's World Cup, the final of the two sides is the Chinese team and the United States team - when 90,195 spectators poured into the Los Angeles Rose Bowl Stadium, creating a world record for admission to the audience.
After 23 years, this world record was finally broken by the Battle of Camp Nou.
Towards the end of the game, the nou's screen showed the number of spectators for the game
In the first leg, Barca won 3-1 away to Real Madrid. At that time, foreign media had already reported that more than 85,000 tickets had been sold in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final at the end of the month, and the Camp Nou Stadium may usher in a new high in the number of women's football spectators. National derby, liberalization of epidemic prevention and control, top technical and tactical matches, defending champions, Golden Globe winners... This series of factors has created a world record of as many as 91,553 people in this game.
Barca's fairy ball opened the scoring
Judging from the evolution of the top women's football leagues in each country, the development time of Chinese women's football leagues is actually earlier, and many European countries have only begun to develop professional women's football leagues after the 21st century.
However, compared with the "dismal" data of the average number of 1840 people in the Chinese women's football league in 2019, how did the European women's football team, which started later than the Chinese women's football league, do it?
02
From the Champions League to Europe
The essential reason for the battle for the Camp Nou is the epitome of the rapid development of European women's football.
As early as the 2019 Women's World Cup in France, the progress of European women's football has swept the world. Seven of the top 8 seats in the women's World Cup were occupied by European teams; the semi-final of the England women's team against the United States set a women's football watch record of 11.7 million people, which was also the highest-rated TV show in the United Kingdom in 2019.
Although the World Cup was still the "only seedling" in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the United States women's football team won the championship. But the drastic changes in the world women's football pattern have begun. For a long time to come, the world center of women's football will undoubtedly come to Europe.
The century-old history of men's football has accumulated a deep football culture for Europe. Huge fan base, loyal intergenerational inheritance; this is a readily available resource for the development of Women's Football in Europe. More and more male football fans have begun to turn to the women's football team of the home team. For example, in the top ten popular women's football clubs in Europe, you can see the familiar figures of fans such as Lyon, Barca and Bayern, and the clubs of the five major leagues occupy as many as eight seats.
It is not difficult to analyze that the "giant linkage effect" with a broad fan base, market, management experience and training facilities has played an important role in the promotion of women's football. This also makes the star-studded women's champions league one of the top and most gold-sucking professional leagues in the women's football world.
Women's Champions League LOGO
Today's Women's Champions League, as a benchmark event in women's professional sports, is setting many milestones in the history of women's football. If you still rely on the stereotype that women's football is "low in competition", it is a big mistake.
At the same time, according to the survey results of the well-known data agency YouGov, although there is still a natural gap between women and male athletes of the same level in terms of speed, strength, physical fitness, etc., the impact of these innate physical factors on the quality of the game is almost no longer the reason for people to pay attention to women's sports competitions.
After reading the goal in the picture below, do you still have the confidence to say that the level of women's football is poor?
Real Madrid defender Solnosa's shot from the centre circle staged a world wave
In other words, perceptions such as "women's matches are not as good as men's matches" are already the impression stream of the past. On the contrary, the drivers who hinder people's attention to women's sports come from the media and the brand itself – low-frequency and low-level media content, as well as marketing propaganda that lacks the basic cognition of women's sports, have a negative impact on the image of women's sports in the public and society.
Among them, the most critical issue is still the "very limited" attention of the mainstream media to women's sports.
However, we are pleased to see that more and more broadcast platforms have begun to pay attention to the women's sports market – for example, this season's women's Champions League broadcast platform, which is the well-known sports paid streaming service platform (OTT) DAZN.
Founded in 2016, DAZN was originally part of the British digital sports media Perform Group, owned by Ukrainian billionaire Len Blavatnik, who is also the owner of warner music group. In March 2019, Perform Group changed its name to DAZN Group and focused its business primarily on sports streaming services. At present, its business territory has been expanded to four continents in the world.
In June last year, UEFA announced on its official website that DAZN and Youtube, the world-renowned sports streaming service platforms, will become the rights-holding broadcasting platforms for the women's Champions League in the next four years, which is another blockbuster cooperation between DAZN and UEFA.
DAZN's YouTube women's Champions League channel homepage
A long contract also means an increase in the ratings of women's football events around the world, as well as an expansion of the audience. In the past, the women's Champions League broadcast platform was limited, and most of them focused on the last part of the knockout rounds. But 61 women's Champions League matches each in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons will be broadcast for free on YouTube and Dazn. Viewers can log on to DAZN's official Youtube channel to see women's Champions League matches for free.
Simple, convenient and free viewing, it is the best time to absorb the audience for the expanding women's football market.
Paired with the free live streaming promotion, there has been a significant increase in the women's Champions League bonus. With the signing of high-value broadcast contracts, the commercial value and prize money of the participating teams have also risen. The active emerging streaming giant provides more opportunities for participating women's soccer teams to appear and more spectators around the world.
According to reports, since the beginning of this season, UEFA has increased the total prize money of women's Champions League by four times (a total of 24 million euros), and the total prize money that the final champion team can receive can reach up to 1.8 million euros – although it is dwarfed by the 134 million euros that runner-up Paris Saint-Germain men's football team can receive in the 2020-2021 Champions League. However, compared with the previous women's football season, the maximum prize money of only more than 400,000 yuan, the amount of today's Champions League awards is already a "big step" in women's sports, and the future will be more promising.
With the expansion of global broadcast coverage and the significant increase in commercial sponsorship, it is bound to bring a virtuous circle to European women's football. As UEFA women's head Nadine Kessler said, the new season of the women's champions league will rely on its own income for the first time, and the opportunity for women's football development has arrived.
In addition to the bonus and broadcast contract, another milestone event for the women's Champions League is that the women's champions league competition also has its own theme song and a new logo.
UEFA Women's Football Head Nadine Kessler believes that the UEFA Women's Champions League itself has its own sports and commercial facilities, has its own uniqueness, and it is very necessary to add a separate theme song and logo. The new theme song and design logo composed by UEFA for women's football girls can not only reflect the prestige of UEFA and European women's football clubs, but also strengthen the brand effect of the women's Champions League.
Promotional video of the new theme song of the women's champions league
The theme song follows the same principles as the UEFA Men's Champions League theme song and is sung by the Dutch Radio Choir (GrootOmreopkoor) in the three official languages of UEFA, English, French and German. The Chinese translation of the last lyrics is " They stand up, glory with each other " , and such lyrics also vividly show that the UEFA Women's Champions League is no longer a giveaway of the men's Champions League, no longer bundling the right to sell the game broadcast, no longer using the theme song and logo together. The image of the European Women's Champions League will be more three-dimensional and unique.
The inspiring theme song inspires European women's footballers and all those who support the development of women's football to continue to devote themselves to women's sports. The number of people seated at 91,553 people is also the best proof.
03
From Europe to the world
Outside of Europe, women's soccer events in Japan and North America are still thriving.
In Japan, the Yamato Fumiko League, founded in 1989, has always been a non-professional league. At last year's World Cup in France, the women's football team has gradually professionalized the European and American teams to win the world's top 8, and the reality that the gap between Europe and the United States and Asia is getting wider and wider has greatly stimulated the Japanese Football Association to accelerate the professionalization process of women's football.
On June 3, 2020, the Japan Football Association officially decided that the Japan Women's Football WE League (Women Empowerment League) will officially open in the autumn of 2021, which also marks the official entry of the Japanese Women's Football League into the professional era. The goal of the WE League is to build the world's first women's football league and make the Japanese women's football team become the world's first again.
The new logo of the Japan Women's Professional Football League
The biggest highlight of the new WE League is the international integration, which adopts the autumn and spring format of opening in September, closing in May, and home-and-away round robin. At the same time, the club must have at least 5,000 seats at home. The most noteworthy thing is that the Japanese Football Association has a special requirement for the review of clubs participating in the WE League: at least 1 female manager, and more than 50% of the club's female staff within 3 years.
Such a request embodies the philosophy of the WE League: through women's football, realize and develop a diversity full of dreams and lifestyles, so that everyone can shine.
In North America, women's football has a longer history. The development of major league soccer is well known to the world, and this year, the U.S. women's soccer team and the U.S. Football Association also reached a settlement of equal pay for equal work — the U.S. Soccer Federation will compensate the women's soccer team $24 million, while promising to provide the same level of pay for men's and women's soccer teams, including World Cup prize money. The U.S. men's and women's national teams have achieved equal pay for men and women for equal work in one fell swoop.
U.S. Women's National Team
We can see that from Europe to the world, advanced management mechanisms, scientific development concepts, and a long-standing fan base have provided rich fertile ground for the rapid rise of women's football. The future of women's football in Europe is exciting and its potential is endless.
For the Chinese women's football team, the Asian Cup won the championship in one fell swoop, and also allowed the Chinese people to see the huge potential of the Chinese women's football team again. However, the future of development is still obstacles and long, and we still need to be soberly aware of the huge gap with the world's professional level. In addition to improving its own league construction, sending outstanding player seedlings and management talents to stay in the West as soon as possible, and constantly accepting the high-paced experience of the world's first-line professional leagues, may be the "shortcut" for the re-emergence of Chinese women's football.
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