The Women’s Super League will need a number of media rights deals before it becomes self-sustainable, the FA’s Kelly Simmons has acknowledged.
The women’s game received a major boost last month when a three-year TV deal worth £24 million was announced. From next season WSL matches will be shown live on Sky Sports and the BBC, increasing the exposure of the league in this country.
Speaking on the ten-year anniversary of the WSL, Simmons, who is the director of the women’s professional game, reflected on what things will look like in another decade.
“The big change for me will be that the women’s game should be able to generate enough revenue in ten years to stand on its own two feet,” she said.
The WSL, now an all-professional 12-team league, began as an eight-team semi-professional division on April 13, 2011. Steady domestic growth has been boosted by the success and profile of the national team in tournaments, with a particular uplift after the 2015 World Cup where England won the bronze medal. Simmons believes women’s football will continue to grow but admits clubs will need support from the men’s game for some time.
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“We’ve seen Barclays, we’ve seen the multimillion-pound TV rights announcements we made a couple of weeks ago, but it’s not yet sustainable,” she said. “It can’t survive without money made through men’s football. I think over ten years, we’ll see that change, revenues will grow and ultimately, we should be looking at a sustainable professional league in its own right and that will be a big shift.
“I think it is going to take a couple of media rights cycles to do that, when you look at the amount that is distributed from the [centralised deals] to the club’s obviously, they’re growing their own revenues. I think two years is probably too big a jump, because the cost base is increasing. The player salaries potentially are going to increase because there’s more competition, with the growth of European leagues.”
Several WSL stars will be in action for England tonight when they play Canada at Stoke City’s bet365 Stadium. Hege Riise, the interim manager, will be looking for a reaction to her side’s 3-1 defeat by France in Caen on Friday, while also rotating her squad. It is the first time in more than a year that the team have had back-to-back games.
Lucy Bronze and Demi Stokes, who did not play last week because of “minor injuries”, are back in training but may not be risked from the start. Riise has challenged her team to “clean up” their errors, particularly in the transition period where England appear vulnerable when they lose the ball.
“I feel comfortable that we are moving in the right direction,” the Norwegian said. “If you look behind the loss, there are bits and pieces that are really good and some things that we need to just clean up, and that’s what the next game will hopefully look like.
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“You defend as a team and it starts with the one or two up top, and if we look at the France game, when we are in good shape, they didn’t create that much. But in the transition where we are too high, or don’t do the work [run back], then we are in trouble. I will say that the team effort is the thing that we need to work on, more so than individually.”
