“For many years, women’s football – and women’s sport more generally – has typically been compared with a “startup” business, in that it is fundamentally loss-making and requires sustained investment before it can return a profit.”
The FIFA BENCHMARKING REPORT asks that the industry does not hold women’s sport to a profitability metric the wider game has yet to consistently achieve.
That said, there was a decline in both TV audiences and match day attendances for the 2024/25 BWSL (Barclays Women’s Super League). They are at their lowest levels since COVID-19 and include:
– A 35% decrease in average TV audiences per game season-on-season
– A10% fall in average attendances for the BWSL season-on-season from 7,371 to 6,661.
– They coincide with a decrease in the number of live BWSL matches on BBC One and Sky Sports Main Event and Premier League.
Mixed Signals and the reasons why
If as some say, the reason for the decline was England’s failure to win the 2023 Women’s World Cup. How is it that the women’s Barclays championship had a 108% increase in match day attendance from 1,002 to 2,086. The men’s English Premier League (EPL) viewing figures also dropped 9% in the same time period.
Perhaps the reason was a more pragmatic one, notably the relegation of Bristol City the previous year. Thy had average attendances of 6,974 for their home games, and were replaced by promoted Crystal Palace whose average attendance was 1,779.
Other women’s sports such as Rugby, cricket and netball provided further competition for women’s football. In women’s cricket 5 of the top 10 viewing audiences were women’s Vitality Blast and Metro Bank One Day cup matches. More coverage of EFL matches, F1 and golf, further tested the resilience of women’s football to competitor products.
YouTube and TikTok buck the trend
Despite the drop in TV audience viewing, the BWSL was the 2nd most watched global women’s sport on YouTube in 2024/25 with 39.6m viewers. It was the same on TikTok, with more views of the WSL on TikTok than the men’s English Football League Championship.
It’s not all good news though, with some women’s Champions League matches attracting as few as 15,000 YouTube viewers for a live match.
The England women’s team also lost around 200,000 viewers for their live TV games compared to 2023/24. This may change after England retained their European champions title last month. The next international match against China and the 2025/6 BWSL starting next week will provide a first glimpse of viewing figures.
A delicate balance
Given that the operating costs of most women’s leagues are higher than their operating revenues. The growth of TV and match day audiences needs to be sustained to ensure continued investment. While around a fifth of WSL clubs sell season tickets, season ticket holders only make up around a quarter of match day attendees. The other attendees are more casual fans who pick and choose the matches they attend.
Even when women’s football clubs make a profit, they can suffer if they are not separate entities. Barcelona women’s football team, netball team and men’s team are viewed as one entity financially. So financial liabilities incurred by the big spending men’s team affects the women’s team. Currently the women’s team needs €1 million (£867,215) to clear a financial deficit. They are trying to sell players and reduce wage bills to raise the money.
The average salary of players in the top women’s leagues is 24,000 USD with 16 clubs in seven countries paying an average of over 50,000 USD a year. Barcelona are one of those clubs. In the WSL clubs can spend 40% of their revenue on players’ wages. A type of pay cap that does not exist in men’s football.
A look at the accounts
A look at the accounts of WSL clubs perhaps highlight an underlying problem. WSL Champions Chelsea made a net loss of £-8,424,000. While European Champions Arsenal fared better, they showed a net loss of £-15,000. Their match day revenue in 2024/2025 was £4,354,000 and broadcast revenue £956,000.
The match day and broadcast revenue figures highlight the low cost of match day tickets and WSL broadcast rights. Their commercial revenue was £649,000, and BWSL clubs also receive inter-company loans from the men’s teams they’re affiliated with. This saddles the women’s clubs with debt which will need to be repaid at some point. This revenue is needed as Sky/BBC don’t agree with the WSL valuation of its broadcast rights. This led to an extension of the in-place broadcast deal as a new one could not be agreed at the time.
Match day revenue of Premier League Clubs like Bournemouth only account for 3% of their revenue as their Premier League broadcast revenues are high at £143 million. Arsenal men received £174m in premier league broadcast revenues, this does not include total broadcast revenues. Their total broadcast revenues were £262.2 million with additional match day revenues of £131.6 million and commercial revenues of £218.2 million.
In total Premier League teams received £2.833.6 billion in central payments for 2024/25. Whereas the WSL is tied into a 5 year deal with BBC and Sky worth £65 million. This is equivalent to £13 million a season and an increase on the £7.5 million previously paid by the BBC. This is less than numerous Premier League players earn in a year. While this figure did not meet the WSL valuation of its broadcast rights, it was faced with little or no choice. There had been a desire to revamp the WSL for the 2024/25 season. But the Premier League were not prepared to pay the £25 million required to do so.
Ticket prices
For the 2025/26 season, Arsenal women will play all 11 matches at the 60,000 seater Arsenal Emirates stadium. They have introduced new category C match pricing where tickets sell for: £11.50, £13.50, £34.50, £39.50 and £60. These are early bird ticket prices, the later you buy tickets they increase by between £2 to £10 extra a ticket.
The category A and B matches are generally between £5 to £20 extra a ticket. These involve matches against teams like WSL Champions Chelsea. Whereas category C matches involve matches against teams like newly promoted London City Lionesses. They are an independently owned women’s football club, not affiliated with a men’s team.
An Arsenal women season ticket is £137.50 to £357 for 11 matches at the Emirates Stadium. Cheaper prices are available for: juniors, young adults, senior citizens and disability access. A six game bundle costs £84.00 and includes matches against:
London City Lionesses –
Chelsea Women –
Liverpool Women –
Manchester City Women –
Tottenham Hotspur Women –
Everton Women –
A 19 or 23 game adult season ticket to watch Arsenal men can range from: £921.50 – £1726 (19 games), to £1127 – £2112 (23 games). Even taking into account the extra games in the men’s season there is a vast price difference between men and women’s ticket pricing.
Is the broadcast deal for the WSL a good one?
The 5 year £65 million deal with BBC and Sky is equivalent to £13 million a season and an increase on the £7.5 million previously paid by the BBC. In the big European leagues the value of women’s broadcast rights are roughly 0.5% of the value of the men’s TV rights. So if the value of the Premier League TV rights (not including Champions League rights etc.) is £1.6 billion then 0.5% is £8 million and £13 million is just over 0.8% (0.812%). So the WSL receives more than the 0.5% but arriving at a correct valuation proves tricky.
Previously I stated that the positive YouTube viewing figures for the WSL, however these are not reflected internationally. A breakdown of YouTube viewing of the WSL shows that after the UK with 33.4% of the viewing audience. The next highest viewing of the WSL is from the USA with 21.6%. Followed by Japan 5.6%, Australia 4.1% and Canada with 3.8% of the viewing audience. In addition the BWSL is shown live on the USA network NBC, with DAZN streaming matches in: Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and Eastern Europe.
DAZN has around 1.2 million subscribers to its women’s YouTube channel. With the 2025 Arsenal V Barcelona Champions League final watched by 2 million streamers on DAZN. Unfortunately DAZN has not been able to attract enough paying subscribers to its women’s soccer offering. This is a recurring stumbling block for women’s football and DAZN now uses licensing deals and advertising to recoup its investment in women’s football. DAZN views women’s football as a primarily FTA proposition that cannot attract sufficient subscriber numbers. Just as it currently struggles to attract great numbers of season ticket holders in domestic leagues.
This weakens the hand of the WSL when negotiating broadcast rights deals for it’s product. There is no bidding war or multiple parties bidding to buy the rights. Broadcasters can also talk to clubs to ask them why they are not investing more in their women’s clubs. It’s because they are not making a profit yet despite substantial investment. Which in turn influences what broadcasters are prepared to pay. Especially when they have old programming content that can attract more viewers than women’s football at no further cost to them.
Women’s football has failed to exceed the expectations of broadcasters and until that happens the prices they pay will not materially change. The current deal is well below what the WSL wanted and reflects what Sky and the BBC were willing to pay.
The Way ahead
There is a sure-fire way for the WSL to attract more viewers. This will involve increasing the quality of the product, the overall standard of play in the WSL. There is no question this can work, the elite level World Cup and European Championship finals prove this.
With such quality on show it’s little surprise the Women’s Euro2025 tournament generated 128 million Euros. More than doubling the revenue of the Euro 2022 tournament in England. The financial model here is more akin to the men’s game with only 12% of revenues coming from ticket sales. The main revenue was generated from media rights 56% and commercial rights 32%. This amounted to around half a billion viewers in approximately 200 countries. Making a mockery of any notion that the women’s game cannot attract viewers in large numbers.
The high TV audience numbers did not affect stadium attendances with 29 of 31 matches sold out. The average attendance was 21,000 across the tournament with ground capacities ranging from 8,000 to 34,000. The averages for the group stage were 19,000, with 28,000 for the quarter-finals and 24,000 for the semi-final. The final was attended by 34,000 people.
In total, nearly 660,000 people attended the matches comfortably beating the 575,000 that attended Euro 2022 in England.
A Net Loss
Even though Euro2025 lost around 35 million Euros compared to 14 million in 2022. This was because the prize money more than doubled for participants, as did payments for simply qualifying for the tournament. Better accommodation was provided for players and the quality of broadcast facilities was greatly enhanced. Free travel to games for fans was also provided but Switzerland is an expensive place.
What the tournament does show is that this quality of football sells well and gets vast audiences. The 10 million audience that watched England play Italy was the biggest TV audience the UK broadcaster ITV have had all year. So at this level the ability to sell to a wide number of international markets is proven. At club level, whether domestically or in the Champions League, the media rights market is too small to generate profits.
One cannot become too complacent regarding international tournaments either. Different countries have different stances on how much they should pay for broadcast rights. In Spain they may offer only £1 million for broadcast rights, in England they may offer to pay £10 million as they get big audiences for women’s international tournaments. Luckily as the market is large, they can get enough bigger and smaller deals to collect substantial amounts of money.
In Conclusion
The quality of players and matches will determine the success of women’s football. Clubs like Arsenal and Chelsea are not trying to sign the most exciting players for no reason. They want to create a product with an exciting brand of football like the Premier League. Some men’s leagues struggle to sell internationally as their product is not enticing and does not sell well. Arsenal women will play all 11 home matches this season in the 60,000 seater Emirates stadium. They had a WSL record crowd of 60,010 when they beat Tottenham there last year (2024/25). Their average crowd (35,000) is bigger than that of 10 men’s clubs in the Premier League.
Arsenal women play an exciting brand of football and are a very well supported club. Their progressive and daring style has seen them win the Women’s European Champions League. Something that Arsenal men’s team has failed to do for all their history. Arsenal have grasped the moment and are riding the wave. If success is about who dares wins, Arsenal dared and they are certainly winning. Their attendances and revenues won’t go down this year it will go up. They are not waiting for the WSL, FA or any other body to show them how to run a football club. They know how to do it themselves and are shaping their own destiny.
