Author: bianca-wilson

LawInSport, in partnership with Brandsmiths, recently hosted “The Business of Women’s Sport” seminar at our London office. The seminar focused on exploring the growing commercialisation of women’s sport and how it’s valued.

The two panels explored the re-valuation of women’s sport for fans, brands and broadcasters, and what it takes to build investable women’s teams, leagues and competitions.

Speakers:
- Lauren Lamb, Commercial Manager, The Boat Race 
- Bianca Wilson, Partner and Head of Commercial, Brandsmiths 
- Emma Thackwray, Broadcast Partnerships Lead, Two Circles 
- James Marshall, Partnership Strategy Manager, England Rugby 
- Gabriella Lowe, COO & Head of Women's Sport 
- Guilia Mazzia, Commercial Director – Women’s, Chelsea FC 
- Maxime Van Den Dijseel, Associate, Brandsmiths (Currently on Secondment at Leicester City FC)
- Abi Ijasanmi, Founder & CEO, African Sports Investor

Re-valuing women’s sports for fans, brands and broadcasters

The conversation around women's sport has shifted. It's no longer about whether the commercial opportunity exists, but whether the structures being built around it are fit for purpose and how we are valuing it.

The panel discussed how brands play a key role in shaping the commercial value of women’s sport. The level of investment a brand is prepared to make signals confidence in the sport’s commercial value. For example, in December 2025, Mercedes-Benz became the premium partner of the Women’s Tennis Association in a 10-year deal worth up to $500bn dollars (£375m). The greater the investment, the greater the message is to the market that the sport is worth investing in from a commercial perspective.

When it comes to sponsorship in sports, brands seek maximum visibility and audience engagement from their investment. Key considerations when determining a sponsorship include:
- Audience demographic;
- Bundling vs unbundling of rights; and
-The broadcaster.

Brands can often leverage their investment across both the men’s and women’s teams within an organisation to take advantage of the shared intellectual property of a club or organisation, namely the badge. This happens when the football club keep the rights bundled together for maximum visibility, and therefore the sponsor benefits from maximum exposure also.

Unbundling rights can narrow the potential sponsors available for women’s teams, but can be advantageous in building a standalone brand. For example, the intellectual property rights of the Red Roses are separate from the England Men’s rugby team, to establish their own market value, attract different sponsors and drive more authentic engagement from audiences. We see that sponsors coming into the women's game are quite different from those that sponsor men's teams; they are looking for authenticity and are usually value-led, which creates a much higher engagement from the fans and ultimately the consumer.

This raises a fundamental question of who the audience is for women’s sport. It is a question that remains properly unanswered and unmeasured. Clubs and teams should actively consider whether they are targeting women and, if they are not, whether they are missing a significant commercial opportunity.

Women influence up to 70-80% of household purchasing decisions and consistently demonstrate stronger brand trust and loyalty, with 58% more likely to think positively of brands that sponsor women’s sport. This enhances the commercial attractiveness of clubs and leagues that authentically target female audiences.

In 2025, Here We Flo partnered with Chelsea Football Club’s Women’s team as the official back-of-shirt partner as part of the “We Don’t Bleed Blue. We Bleed. Period” campaign. Brandsmiths negotiated the deal on behalf of Here We Flo. By aligning with a brand that resonated with Chelsea FC Women’s predominantly female audience, the partnership showed how audience insight and authenticity can translate into stronger commercial propositions, making women’s teams more attractive to sponsors and investors alike.

Brands also invest in individual athletes to align with the sport. In 2024, WNBA star Caitlin Clark took the league by storm in her debut season with WNBA viewership and attendance increasing due to the “Caitlin Clark effect”. This is a prime example of how individual athletes can drive sponsorship interest and commercial growth.

It’s a numbers game – but which numbers?

Broadcasters also play a pivotal role in valuation and growth. The decisions relating to the bundling versus unbundling of broadcasting rights are more complex than sponsorship deals.

Unbundling is two conversations, not one. The first is separating women's rights from men's structures, which is governance. The second is a commercial one, relating to splitting the rights package itself to find the natural buyer for each slice.

When WSL Football became independent from the FA in 2024 and negotiated its own rights - Sky for 118 games, BBC for 21, TNT for the Women's FA Cup, IMG for international rights and YouTube for the remaining games, the broadcast deal increased 82% immediately. Nothing changed about the product. Everything changed about who was negotiating for it.

Viewership metrics are of paramount importance to broadcasters, who must consider which markets can stand alone as a more attractive product. In the UK, record audiences of millions of viewers without dependency on men’s competitions have enabled successful unbundling. However, in markets such as Japan, women’s rights remain bundled to preserve reach and free‑to‑air visibility while audience habits still need to catch up.

While the Women’s Super League and Six Nations have become more attractive propositions that broadcasters can confidently value as standalone investments, the UEFA Champions League has not reached that stage yet. Looking forward, brands and broadcasters must demonstrate a return on investment. Brands are increasingly entering the market through deals that have shorter contractual terms to gauge whether investing in women’s sports is worthwhile.

While broadcasters are increasingly investing in women’s sports, they may be required to consider a short-term risk for potential long-term growth. Free-to-air events could play a critical part in unlocking a wider audience and accelerating the growth of women’s sports, which might otherwise be paywalled content.

Building investable women’s teams, leagues and competitions

The second panel explored what it takes to build investable women’s teams, leagues and competitions.

Chelsea FC Women’s team is an example of a team that has successfully separated from the men’s team. On 22 April 2026, it was announced that Chelsea FC Women will play all Women’s Super League home fixtures at Stamford Bridge from the 2026/27 season. The full-time move to the stadium is a direct result of strengthened audience engagement.

Chelsea FC Women has unlocked new audiences through selective partnerships such as the Here We Flo partnership, which received positive feedback from their fans. Creating tailored experiences for female fans beyond the match itself is a further example of combining creative thinking and understanding your audience; such as the family day at Stamford Bridge, parking stations for prams and tailored food and beverage options before kick-off.

On the other hand, separating from the men’s team may not be beneficial for all women’s teams. Arsenal FC Women enjoys great success by being aligned with Arsenal Football Club. In 2024, Arsenal FC Women officially sold-out Emirates Stadium for back-to-back Women’s Super League fixtures.

For clubs like Chelsea, the women’s team has built enough success, visibility and fan loyalty to stand alone. Being separate gives Chelsea FC Women more freedom to:
- choose sponsors that truly fit their audience;
- shape their own brand and matchday experience; and 
- tell a clear commercial story to partners and investors.

Independence works when separation helps the women’s team grow faster than it would as part of the men’s team brand.

Whichever approach a women’s team chooses to take, fan retention is essential and a challenge that women’s sports face in general. While women’s teams may be successful in attracting new fans, they must convert first-timers into a loyal fanbase.

Rights and commercial certainty  

From an investor’s perspective, certainty and transparency are fundamental. Before committing capital, an investor needs a clear picture of what assets they are actually acquiring, and in women's football, that question is more complex than it might first appear.

Where a women's team remains structurally embedded within a parent men's club, the investor must understand the precise legal relationship between the two entities: what rights flow to the women's team, on what basis, and what protections exist if that relationship changes.

Intellectual property is the clearest illustration of this. A club's badge is typically its most commercially valuable asset, but if the women's team has not yet formally separated from the men's club, or has recently done so, the ownership and licensing position around core IP (badge, name, colours, historical rights) may not be so clear-cut.

In addition, where a women's club has decoupled entirely from its men's counterpart, that brings its own due diligence considerations.

Decoupling varies significantly across clubs in how they choose to apportion IP, commercial revenues, and stadium or training ground access. The investor needs to interrogate what the club actually owns outright versus what remains tethered to the parent.

Relegation risk 

Uncertainty capable of affecting investor appetite is not limited to structural considerations of the kind described above. Footballing considerations, such as league position and the prospect of relegation, introduce a further and distinct layer of commercial risk that investors must account for.
  
Relegation risks for women's teams operate on two distinct tracks. The first is the women's team's own league position. Where relegation from the WSL is a genuine prospect, the commercial consequences are material. Investors and commercial partners need to understand that the financial cliff-edge on relegation is considerably steeper in women's football than in comparable men's structures.

The second, and perhaps less obvious, risk arises from the men's club's position, where the women's team remains coupled to it. A men's first team relegation, with the broadcast revenue losses and cost-cutting that invariably follow, will typically cascade directly onto the women's programme. Budget reductions, staffing cuts, and scaled-back infrastructure investment hit the women's team just as hard, despite the fact that the women's team may be performing well and holding its own league position. For an investor assessing a coupled structure, the financial health and league stability of the men's club is therefore another core consideration.

Protecting value  

While European women’s sport is increasingly focused on commercial structures and investment models, African women’s football highlights what happens when those foundations are not yet in place.

Unlike Europe and the USA, in Africa, commercial rights are bundled at a state level, which limits clubs and competition organisers’ ability to attract investment.

Re-thinking the format of the women’s game is something that stakeholders have been considering in Africa, with the men’s game a useful benchmark to avoid reinventing the wheel. West African academies such as the Right to Dream Academy in Ghana have produced stars like Mohammed Kudus, who has gone on to succeed in Europe. However, as the current academy model follows a pattern of producing talented players who eventually move to European clubs, the women’s game may benefit from keeping hold of talented players. Attracting investment to build elite female equivalent academies across Africa could be the solution to producing quality players, competitive leagues and by extension, an investable product.

Planning for success

The growth of women’s sport is not just about visibility anymore - it is about how value is structured, protected and put into action. As audiences, sponsors and broadcasters continue to re-evaluate women’s sport, the clubs and leagues that succeed will be those that align commercial strategy with a clear understanding of their fans.

For organisations, rights holders or brands looking to structure commercial partnerships in women’s sport, including protecting and exploiting intellectual property, unbundling rights, or building investable propositions, Bianca Wilson, Head of Commercial at Brandsmiths, advises clubs, leagues and investors on strategic deal design.

Get in touch to discuss how to position women’s sport for sustainable commercial growth.