Women's sport on track for new audience records in 2021, says report

By Becky GreyBBC Sport
Chelsea's Erin Cuthbert runs with the ball
A new broadcast deal for the FA Women's Super League is one of the factors driving audience growth

Women's sport is on course to achieve a record for British broadcast audiences in 2021, a new report says.

Futures Sport, working with the Women's Sport Trust, estimates an audience of 51.1m will be reached in 2021, growing from 46.8m in 2019.

In 2020, when women's sport was hit by the pandemic, 27.3m were reached.

Researchers say the boost in audiences is driven by The Hundred cricket tournament and a new broadcast deal for the FA Women's Super League.

As well as viewership, the research explored coverage of sport across multiple broadcasters.

It found coverage of the Tokyo Olympic Games on the BBC achieved gender parity, with 47% of audio mentions being about female athletes.

Across the BBC and Sky, 47% of total live coverage hours of The Hundred were dedicated to the women's game.

In football, the WSL's new broadcast deal has so far brought in 7.87m new viewers, with 89% of those watching on BBC or Sky never having watched on BT Sport in the previous four seasons.

However, the report showed women's sport is still behind men's in terms of repeat viewers. For example in the women's Hundred, 45% of the audience watched on television more than once, while 55% watched the men's Hundred more than once.

The Women's Sport Trust also noted it is no longer just major events like World Cups and Olympics driving growth.

Tammy Parlour, chief executive and co-founder of the Women's Sport Trust, said: "It is great to see the change that's happening as other women's sporting events start to gain traction.

"This trend now needs to become a habit so they keep coming back on a regular basis and build greater emotional connections with the leading female teams and athletes."

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