Breaking barriers: commercialising women's sports in a new era of visibility and growth

Women’s sport, and the commercialisation of its rights, is at a crucial crossroads in its development. The exponential growth in the viewership and visibility of women’s sport in recent years has been widely reported and rightly celebrated. As covered in a previous Sports Shorts blog post1, 2023 was another record-breaking year with 46.7m people tuning in to watch women’s sport on linear TV, surpassing the previous record set in 2019 by nearly a million2. Women’s elite sport is also predicted to break through the billion-dollar barrier and generate global revenues in excess of $1bn for the first time in 20243. Whilst the numbers make for great reading and present numerous opportunities, they also bring with them certain challenges.

On 29 February 2024, the dedicated Women’s Sport Group at the authors’ firm hosted its inaugural Women’s Sport Symposium to discuss key issues across the women’s sporting landscape. Amongst other topics, a panel of key figures and experts, which was chaired by Sarah Butler (Founder of Sports Business Connected), discussed the key opportunities and challenges facing the commercialisation of women’s sports rights:

• Free-to-air vs. Paywall
• Pinnacle vs. Pyramid
• Bundled vs. Unbundled
• Scheduling
• Exploiting the opportunity