Stay ahead of the curve and future-proof your business with Mintel’s UK Women’s Sports Market Report 2024. Our full report is packed with consumer-led market intelligence, the latest market research, trends, and consumer behaviours affecting your business.Â
Below, we’ve handpicked the key insights analysed in the full report and summarised the core topics.
Topics Analysed in this Report
- How women’s sport can differentiate itself from men’s as an entertainment product.
- The key drivers of interest in women’s sport.
- Ways in which women’s sport is attracting spectators in the cost of living crisis.
- How women’s sports audiences differ from men’s.
- What fans think about sponsors of women’s sport.
- What the Olympic opportunity looks like for women’s sport in 2024.
Women in Sports: Overview
Prioritising access and visibility is not only driving the early-stage growth of women’s sport but also helping it appeal to the price sensitivity and value focus the cost of living crisis has brought to the leisure market. The most exciting opportunity the women’s sport market has is in using its freedom from traditional, male-dominated structures to create new formats, properties, fan experiences and media products that will reshape the future of sport.
- Women in sports statistics: 690,000 people attended WSL Football in 2022/23.
Opportunities for Women’s Sport
More fame for female athletes
The marketing potential of female athletes is an opportunity to be unlocked, particularly beyond the leading women’s sports of football, tennis and athletics. Building star profiles will be a long-term project but one that can benefit brands able to leverage leading female athletes’ social media presence, their relatability and the inspiring stories of their rise to the top.
- Women’s sport data: 43% of the public recognized the footballer Mary Earps.
Brand partnerships
Women’s sport has important potential as a platform for brands seeking to align with the equality and respect which highlight growing consumer preference for institutions and companies that promote fairness and share their values.
- Women’s sport: 80% of Brits agree that female athletes are good role models for girls.
Purchase our UK Women’s Sport Market Report to receive consumer behaviour analysis, and recommendations for market opportunities. Readers of this report may also be interested in our UK Sports Goods Retailing Market Report 2024, or our range of Sports Market Research.
Brands Featured in the Full Report
Brighton and Hove Albion, England and Wales Cricket Board, Nestle, Il Makiage, Cadbury’s, Gillette, British Gas and many more.
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Expert Insights from a Mintel Analyst
This report, written by David Walmsley, a leading research analyst, delivers in-depth commentary and analysis to highlight women’s sports market trends and add expert context to the numbers.
Women’s sport can disrupt the wider market by breaking with traditional (male-dominated) structures to create bold new formats, experiences and media products.
David Walmsley
Research Analyst
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- Key issues covered in this Report
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Executive Summary
- Opportunities for women’s sport
- Market dynamics and outlook
- Graph 1: leading women’s sport competition attendances, 2022/23
- Graph 2: interest in women’s sport, by household income, 2024
- What consumers want and why
- Graph 3: most-followed women’s sports, 2024
- Graph 4: interest in international and domestic women’s sports events, 2024
- Graph 5: awareness of female athletes, by women’s sports followed, 2024
- Graph 6: incentives to follow women’s sport, 2024
- Graph 7: attitudes towards women’s sport, 2024
- Innovation and marketing
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Market Dynamics
- Market background
- Graph 8: Women’s Super League revenues 2020/21 and 2021/22
- Graph 9: WSL attendances, 2022/23 and 2023/24
- Graph 10: leading women’s sport TV audiences, 2023
- Macro-economic factors
- Graph 11: CPI inflation rate, 2021-23
- Graph 12: the financial wellbeing index, 2016-23
- Graph 13: the financial confidence index, 2016-23
- Social, environmental and legal factors
- Graph 14: attitudes towards diversity and society, by generation, 2023
- Graph 15: online media coverage* of women’s sport, 2021-23
- Graph 16: sports participation, by gender and age, 2023
- Market segmentation
- Graph 17: leading Women’s Super League clubs’ revenues, 2021/22
- Graph 18: The Hundred women’s matches total attendance, 2022 and 2023
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What Consumers Want and Why
- Women’s sports fans
- Graph 19: interest in women’s sport, 2024
- Graph 20: interest in women’s sport, by sex and parental status, 2024
- Graph 21: interest in women’s sport, by age
- Women’s sports
- Graph 22: interest in selected women’s sports, 2024
- Graph 23: sports fans’ interest in women’s sport, by generation, 2024
- Women’s sports events
- Graph 24: most-followed women’s sports events, 2024
- Graph 25: interest in international and domestic women’s sports events, 2024
- Female athletes
- Graph 26: awareness of female athletes, 2024
- Graph 27: awareness of female athletes, by women’s sports followed, 2024
- Graph 28: awareness of female athletes within Generation Z, 2024
- Graph 29: awareness of leading female footballers, by generation, 2024
- Promoting women’s sport
- Graph 30: influence of TV and social media on interest in women’s sport, by age, 2024
- Graph 31: influence of club support on interest in women’s sport, 2024
- Attitudes towards women’s sport
- Graph 32: attitudes towards women’s sport, 2024
- Graph 33: Younger Millennials’ attitudes towards women’s sport, 2024
- Graph 34: recognition of the value of sponsorship in developing women’s sport, by generation, 2024
- Graph 35: attitudes towards female athletes, 2024
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Innovation And Marketing Trends
- Launch activity and innovation
- Advertising and marketing activity
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Appendix
- Supplementary data
- Report scope and definitions
- Methodology
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