Women’s football in England has been boosted by the success of the Lionesses, who triumphed in the 2022 UEFA Women’s Euros on home soil, then reached the final of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
This growing interest has helped drive growth domestically, especially in the Women’s Super League (WSL), where many of the world’s leading players now ply their trade.
So there’s a lot of good news around the women’s game now, including increased crowds, a larger media profile and more commercial partnerships, but it is still very much in the early stages of growth.
This was acknowledged by Karen Carney, who chaired the government sponsored Review of the Future of Women’s Football, with the review addressing “this defining moment for the women’s game”, while looking at the current situation as “both a challenge and an opportunity”.
The former England international summed the situation up as follows: “The headlines in the women’s game make it look as if it is in a healthy position: records for attendances and TV viewing figures are frequently being broken, and England are the European champions.
Nothing can take away from these great achievements, but it is like Instagram vs. reality, and the latter is worrying and we need to address it. We scratched beneath the surface to identify issues that need rectifying.”
In short, the women’s game stands at an important crossroads, so let’s take a look into the finances for a better idea of the various opportunities and challenges.
This deep dive will be split into two parts:
Part 1 – analysis of the WSL accounts for the 2022/23 season
Part 2 – how the women’s game can grow to the next level
Caveat
Before we get into the review of WSL financials, we should note that the analysis is made more difficult by the fact that not all clubs publish detailed accounts. This means that we lack some information on revenue, expenses and wages, while there are also different accounting treatments used by various clubs. Finally, Reading have not yet published their accounts for he 2022/23 season.
Nevertheless, there is more than enough data available to identify some common themes.
Revenue
WSL clubs generated total revenue of £48m in 2022/23, which was an increase of around 50% on the previous season’s £32m. This means that revenue has more than doubled in just two years, though the £20m in 2020/21 was adversely impacted by the COVID pandemic.
The growth is mainly driven by an improvement in commercial and match day revenue, though the English clubs playing in Europe also benefited from higher prize money thanks to their good progress in the Champions League. It should also be acknowledged that support from the men’s team has also greatly increased.
All the leading clubs in the WSL have seen significant revenue growth in recent years. The highest year-on-year increases in 2022/23 were at Arsenal £4.1m (60%), Chelsea £2.4m (37%) and Manchester United £1.9m (37%).
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