Women’s game must cash in on destination stadiums
Staging matches at nation’s famous grounds can help to ensure interest continues to rise, writes Jim White Piggybacking on renown of men’s game may appear self-defeating – but it works
This time last year, on the weekend of football’s first international break, I went to watch the opening game of the Women’s Super League season. It was between Chelsea and Manchester City, the best two sides in the division. On a balmy September Sunday afternoon, with no Premier League fixtures or Ashes cricket to divert the attention, just over 2,000 people had made their way to Kingsmeadow.
At the time it seemed indicative of the distance the women’s game had to travel: even with everything going its way, even in weather pleasant enough to be confused with Spain, the best two teams in the land could attract a crowd bettered that weekend by several National League fixtures.
Fast forward a year, and the same two sides drew between them more than 50,000 spectators for their first games of this season. Chelsea beat Tottenham in front of more than 24,000 at Stamford Bridge, while a crowd of 31,000 saw City win the first ever Women’s Super League Manchester derby at the Etihad. As substantial jumps go, this was in Bob Beamon territory. Less a leap of faith, more a giant stride into the present.
Emma Hayes, the Chelsea manager, said after the game that she and her team were ready and willing to do whatever was necessary to maintain the momentum: visit schools, run coaching sessions, get out and about – there would be no stinting.
But never mind the urge to evangelism. It seems the single most significant thing Hayes and her rival managers can do is this: make sure their matches during the next international break are played in the stadiums of their parent clubs.
What we saw last weekend, not just in Manchester and Chelsea but in Bristol, too – where City’s women’s team, used to playing in front of 500 paying spectators at their Stoke Gifford ground, drew more than 3,000 at Ashton Gate – is that the most potent sales proposition the women’s game has is the ability to stage fixtures in the grand surrounds of the nation’s most renowned homes of football (and Ashton Gate).
At the World Cup in France this summer, the pattern was set. Games were staged not in the small community grounds that had been the norm in previous iterations, but in the sizeable stadiums of the men’s game. They did not all sell out, but there was invariably a crowd substantial enough not to be an embarrassment. And the overall crowd numbers showed a sizeable spike. It was a risk that worked.
It may seem a self-defeating move, piggybacking on the renown of the men’s game, but the truth is, as Saturday and Sunday’s crowds demonstrated, it works. Sure, Chelsea provided free entry to the game at Stamford Bridge. But more than 30,000 paid to watch at the Etihad. And whatever the financial arrangement, there is no better way to introduce the attractions of the women’s game to a whole new audience, an audience moreover largely excluded by price and availability from the men’s game. Which is why Tottenham are following the lead of City and Chelsea and will be hosting the north London women’s derby at their new stadium during the international break in mid-november: the stadium is being sold as a destination in its own right, and here is the chance to exploit its potency. If you build it, they will come. Make it an event and they will come in numbers.
And it is worth remembering that this is an advantage the women’s sides have over the lower-division clubs who try to exploit the moment provided by the international break to emerge temporarily from the wilting shadow cast by the Premier League. When England head to Prague in a month’s time, Tranmere Rovers will not have the opportunity to play at Anfield, Leyton Orient will not be invited to illuminate the London Stadium, while the hospitality at the Etihad Stadium will not be extended to Oldham Athletic. It always helps to have a wealthy parent.