Introduction
Our Women’s Sport Group hosted its inaugural event: ‘Women’s Sport: Moving the Conversation Forward’ in the London office earlier this year. Speakers covered a range of topics key to the future growth, development, and sustainability of women’s sport, including commercial, financial, regulatory and brand protection issues. The event concluded with a fireside chat between Co-Head of the Women’s Sports Group, Georgie Twigg MBE, and special guest Dame Katherine Grainger DBE, where Dame Katherine shared some fascinating insights into her sporting career and role as Chair of UK Sport.
Investing in and commercialising women’s sport
Georgie and Claire Barker spoke on the subject of investing in and commercialising women’s sport in view of the huge surge in popularity of women’s sport, leading to numerous investment opportunities to both capitalise on and support its growth.
Women’s sport has for years been seen as the poor relation to men’s sport, receiving little funding, resources, or media coverage. However, change is afoot, and there has been an explosion in women’s sport, and the business of women’s sport, in the last few years. We are seeing stadium sell-outs for women’s sport; broadcasters are changing their approach and investing in resources; the general women’s sport investment market is booming with the increased involvement of the institutional investors where they were not seen before.
The result of all this activity and increased investment is greater exposure for women’s sport, leading to increased audience reach and higher participation levels, leading to (in theory) increased revenues, bringing women’s sport businesses full circle with more money to invest.
Whilst there is a very good story to tell so far, there remain challenges for women’s sport investment – for example, whilst there is clear appetite for women’s sport, the relatively low investment to date could result in a perceived lack of interest and an incorrect estimation of media values, which, in turn, could put brands off from committing more funding. It is therefore crucial to invest wisely, to maximise commercial potential and therefore maximise potential to induce future investment.
When rightsholders are thinking about how best to package their rights, having a clear commercial strategy in place that sets out the key priorities is very important and different women’s properties will have different priorities depending on where they are in their growth journey (e.g. financial, fan numbers, grassroots). As women’s sport continues to grow, rightsholders are now considering whether to unbundle the women’s rights from their related men’s properties. For some properties, unbundling the women’s rights from their related men’s property may not be appropriate at the stage in their growth journey, but at the very least the rights associated with women’s teams are now being valued accordingly and even if, for example, a sponsor is buying a package of rights for both men’s and women’s teams, it will be clear what value is attributed to each property. Where we are seeing successful unbundling of women’s rights, this has resulted in brands specifically targeting the acquisition of women’s rights and the opening up of new categories of brands in the sports sponsorship space (e.g. Il Makiage, Joie, Charlotte Tilbury).
Unbundling is certainly happening more in relation to broadcast rights, and this does present opportunities for different conversations to be had between rightsholders and broadcasters compared to when discussing men’s rights. For example, it may be in both parties’ interest to allow for the rightsholder to have greater clip rights to help generate more attention to the broadcaster’s footage and for a more detailed promotional plan to be put in place.
For a lot of women’s sports, their female athletes are typically (at the moment at least) more accessible than their male counterparts and fans feel that they are more relatable, with a lot of female athletes having far higher engagement levels from fans on social media even though they may have smaller audiences. This is providing a commercial opportunity for rightsholders and brands to be more creative with the rights packages and partnerships with individual athletes. Care does need to be taken when using the female athlete though, and although it may feel fairly low risk that there could be any reputational damage or impact to any commercial agreements at this moment in time, rightsholders and brands should be considering what protections they have in place (e.g. reputational provisions, social media policy, suspension/termination rights), particularly as the female athlete becomes higher profile.
Regulation and risk management in the future of women’s sport
Lereesa Easterbrook, Co-Head of the Women’s Sport Group (alongside Georgie), Jon Goldsworthy and Nia Lewis discussed the regulatory landscape of women’s sport, considering both sports regulatory and employment issues.
Minimum standards
Minimum standards are a key consideration for women’s sports as they strive to grow and professionalise, whether that be minimum pay, minimum standards for facilities, minimum medical standards, etc. These standards should be specifically tailored to the sport and to its level of maturity – it cannot be assumed that minimum standards for the men’s game can simply be transposed to the women’s game.
When it comes to the question of pay, there have been calls across a number of sports for minimum wages. For example, in tennis, players have called for the Women’s Tennis Association to introduce a guaranteed minimum wage, and in women’s football, while there is currently a soft salary cap in place, the Karen Carney review recommended the introduction of a salary floor for Women’s Super League players. There are also frequent calls for equal pay for male and female athletes. Historically, football clubs have relied on “the material factor” defence under the Equality Act 2010 in order to justify the difference in pay, pointing to the fact that female athletes were not engaged in work of equal value on the basis that there was a vast difference in the commerciality between men’s and women’s sport. This argument will become harder to substantiate, however, as women’s sport continues to grow.
Minimum standards can be implemented in different ways, including through regulation or (in the case of certain sports) more specifically through licensing criteria. For example, Karen Carney has recommended that the salary floor be introduced through clubs’ licensing criteria and she also recommended that The FA strengthen training facilities standards as part of licensing requirements.
Maternity policies
Another key consideration for women’s sports is the implementation of maternity regulations and policies setting out the support that will be provided to pregnant athletes and athlete mothers. These regulations and policies will differ depending on the available resources and overall maturity of the sport, as well on the nature of the sport (i.e. contact versus non-contact sports and team versus individual sports).
For example, athletes participating in team sports will typically be contracted by a club or organisation in an employer/employee relationship and paid a monthly or annual salary, meaning it is easier to structure maternity pay policies more similarly to those offered to employees in more orthodox non-sporting settings. We see this with the RFU maternity policy, where contracted England players get 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, which is much like financial packages commonly offered to employees outside of the sporting sector. On the other hand, athletes participating in individual sports (such as tennis) are typically self-employed, with income dependent (directly or indirectly) on performance, meaning that traditional maternity pay policies can be harder to implement and are not necessarily appropriate.
Things to keep in mind when drafting or updating maternity policies and guidance include: (i) consultation and collaboration with athletes and clubs to understand wants and needs, (ii) taking a holistic approach to pregnancy and maternity provision right from the outset of pregnancy through to the return of the sport and beyond, (iii) making policies sport-specific and athlete-centric, recognising that each sport and each athlete is different, and (iv) drafting policies sensitively and inclusively so they apply to all types of parenthood and different pregnancy/birth experiences and outcomes.
Safeguarding
While not a gender-specific issue, safeguarding issues are often raised in the context of women’s sport. Treating safeguarding as a priority is critical not only to protect athletes from harm but to ensure the continued sustainability of women’s sport. If sports governing bodies and organisations don’t have appropriate safeguarding policies and procedures in place or do not implement them effectively, this creates huge organisational risk.
Some of the recurring recommendations on improving safeguarding processes and procedures that we have seen arising from the various safeguarding reviews that have taken place include: (i) the need for proper vetting of coaches, (ii) implementing policies that are clear and consistent on what conduct is and is not acceptable and what is or is not a safeguarding issue, (iii) clearly identifiable and accessible routes to reporting issues, and (iv) designing the safeguarding investigation and case handling process so that it is athlete-centric.
Maximising your brand
Christine Danos, Rebecca O’Kelly-Gillard and Maisie Briggs spoke on ‘Maximising your Brand’, focusing on registering, enforcing and exploiting trade mark rights. Branding in sport is big business: the titles of sporting events, names of participating teams and the names of well-known players can all be protected as intellectual property, and having a strong trade mark portfolio creates significant business value.
While trade marks can be both registered and unregistered, the best protection is with a registration because (a) it is easier to enforce against third parties; and (b) provided the mark is being used and isn’t challenged, trade marks can be renewed in perpetuity, so they are a relatively inexpensive way to add significant value to a sports brand. For new sporting codes being developed, it’s important to think whether the marks being applied for are distinctive enough to achieve registration. If not, it is still possible to register descriptive marks – i.e., by filing evidence of significant use of the mark in the local market to show that the mark has become distinctive and consumers associate the mark with the business. However, an easier route to registration can be to file a logo mark instead, which is more likely to be distinctive. Once trade mark registrations are achieved, not only can they can be exploited to create real business value, but they also make it easier to stop malicious third parties from exploiting brands without consent, and to control who is using the brand for commercial purposes.
Trade mark registrations and a strong IP portfolio, including robust brand guidelines, form an integral and valuable part of licensing and endorsement deals.
Once an organisation has created its brand, it must protect it to maintain and maximise its value. Ensuring there is a brand protection strategy in place is particularly important in the context of women’s sport as it grows and gains more of a following, with events such as the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup and the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup coming up in the UK having national rights in place to deploy during events being critical to prevent counterfeit goods and official ticketing partnerships.
In addition, having a strong IP strategy to protect those trade marks helps to build trust, loyalty and confidence in the goods and services on which they are used. Partners also want to ensure that the sports organisation they work with actively monitors and protects its brand, both to ensure that its reputation is being protected, but so too is the value of that partner’s sponsorship deal.
With thanks for contributions from Claire Barker, Jon Goldsworthy, Nia Lewis, Rebecca O’Kelly-Gillard, Christine Danos, Maisie Briggs, Katie Lapsley, Josie Price, and Intisar Abdi
