Matildas prove value of women’s sport sponsorship, but what about local clubs and players?

Back in 2012 an article from the Illawarra Mercury revealed that Caitlin Foord — now a superstar striker for Arsenal and the Matildas — couldn’t afford to go on a pivotal Australian Schoolgirls football tour.

In the article, her mother Simone Foord lamented the fact that as a single mother, she didn’t have the $6500 needed for the tour. Plans were made for a school raffle and both federal and local MPs were approached for help.

Despite making the Australian under-17s team at just 13 years old, Caitlin found it difficult to attract sponsors.

“Finding sponsorship is really hard, I don’t know if it’s because Caitlin is a girl,” Foord said at the time.

“At the moment I haven’t had the time to find sponsors — everything is taken up by football. I will do whatever I can, she wants to one day play for the Matildas and I want to help get her there no matter what.”

And get there she did, becoming one of the standout stars of the Matildas in the 2023 FIFA Women’sWorld Cup.

But Caitlin’s story isn’t a unique one. Sure, we’re seeing an increase in corporate sponsorship for women’s sport at this high-end level, but there’s still more work to be done when it comes to investing in local clubs and sporting facilities at the grassroots level to help foster the next generation of talent.

Because as we can see from the numbers, it’s absolutely worth it.

The Matildas are breaking records and making money for everyone

One of the age-old excuses for less investment in women’s sport is a lack of interest. But as we’ve seen with the FIFA Women’s World Cup, that’s wildly inaccurate.

The Matilda’s victory against France in the quarter-finals garnered roughly 4.9 million viewers across Australia, which doesn’t take into account those gathered at public viewing spaces to watch the game.

This made it one of the highest-viewed events since Cathy Freeman’s win at the Sydney Olympics back in 2000. Interesting that both of these iconic sporting performances showcased women, yes?

And what a win that’s been for the corporate sponsors such as Xero, Coca-Cola, VISA and more — their investment has resulted in an exponential amount of eyeballs across their messaging for weeks and positioned them favourably as supporters of women’s sports.

On the money front, the Matildas have been playing at sold-out stadiums (more than 1.7 million tickets have been sold — FIFA’s stretch target was just 1.5 million) and their jersey sales have eclipsed those of The Socceroos by two-to-one.

Yet, there is a huge disparity between the major sponsorship deals between the Matildas and the Socceroos.

Back in 2021, the former became the CommBank Matildas and it’s estimated that the four-year sponsorship deal is worth between $1-2 million per year.

Comparatively, the sponsorship that the Socceroos signed with Subway in 2022 is said to be worth almost $12 million across three years.

But this is hardly surprising. Early this year the Victorian government’s Change Our Game initiative that supports women’s sports released a Value of You Can Be What You Can See report that found that the value of women’s elite sport properties is currently sitting at 12% of the level of men’s elite sport properties.

However, it also that the value that sponsors get from investing in women’s elite sport is huge. For every $1 an organisation spends, it sees an average return of $7.29 in customer value.

The report also found that early corporate supporters of women’s elite sport are benefitting from more than $650 million in customer value annually.

This is even being recognised at a government level.

“Corporate sponsorship of women’s sport can deliver powerful benefits for companies that want to partner with clubs and athletes,” Ros Spence, the Victorian Minister for Community Sport, said in an email to SmartCompany.

“Continued growth and the demonstrated value proposition of women’s elite sport make it a compelling investment for corporate sponsors, and these findings reinforce how big an opportunity exists.”

Businesses should be investing early in women’s sport

With the huge success of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the Matildas in particular, we’re likely to see an uptick in women’s sport, as well as individual teams and players at this elite level.

With wage negotiations coming up, as well as contract renegotiation between CommBank and the Matildas in 2024, more cash will be flowing in.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that there is still a disparity between men’s and women’s sporting teams at school and local club levels.

“I’ve seen that first hand where we would launch a club’s first women’s team. It was constantly a challenge to get people to understand the importance of elevating them from the beginning and prioritising investments that we could grow their game,” Jess Jones, women in sports advocate and partnerships manager, said on a call with SmartCompany.

“The argument would always be that there’s a men’s team here and they need our money because they’ve been around for X amount of years, are part of a professional league, etc.

“There’s a constant battle for funds for women’s programs. We’re fighting this old dinosaur on boards asking ‘why are you trying to stop this?’ The world is evolving, this is what people want — to be included and celebrated regardless of their gender, background or culture.”

While a local women’s or girl’s team may not bring in the level of ROI the likes of a national sporting team will, there are still benefits for businesses beyond investing in the future of Australian sport.

Recent research from Vic Sport revealed that every $1 spent on a community football club netted $4.40 return in social value such as employment outcomes, development, community connectedness and mental and physical well-being.

It also found that individuals between the ages of 15-24 associated with local football clubs had an increased chance of securing employment via the social networks provided by the club.

These are great things for small businesses to be involved with, and we need to see more of it so that as a nation we don’t risk leaving behind the next Caitlin Foord.

The good news is that there is some more investment into women’s sport happening at a state government level.

“We have invested more than $1.9 billion in community sports infrastructure since 2014, including supporting the delivery of almost 1,500 infrastructure projects for the benefit of women’s participation in sport,” Minister Spence said to SmartCompany.

This week the South Australian government also announced $28 million to support women’s sporting facilities. About $18 million will be specifically set aside for grants, $8 million of which will be football grants, with Football South Australia committing to matching this dollar-for-dollar.

“It’s still really hard at this grassroots level and will continue to be despite the success of these fantastic elite sporting teams like The Matildas,” Jones said to SmartCompany.

“I just hope it’s able to trickledown into community competitions —  where that interest and support is there – and hopefully we can piggyback off that at a community level.”