Women’s sport on the rise, says Fox Sports
The popularity of women’s sport is on a strong growth trajectory, according to the latest figures released by Fox Sports ahead of International Women’s Day.
The research, conducted in partnership with YouGov, sampled 3054 adults between the eighth to the 15th of February this year, finding that 70% of Australians had increased their consumption of women’s sport since pre-pandemic times.
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Moreover, of those who said that their perception of women’s sport had change, 90% said it was in a positive way.
Encouragingly, the growing support for women’s sports is not just being driven by female viewers, with 72% of males indicating that they were tuning into women’s sport across AFL Women’s (AFLW), NRL Women’s (NRLW) and Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), accounting for a total two thirds of women’s sports viewers.
Of those who were viewing more women’s sports, 56% attributed their viewing behaviours to the increased media coverage of women’s sports events and stars, and 49% pointed to increased dedicated broadcast coverage.
Women’s cricket leads the charge for women’s sport, with the final of 2020 Women’s Cricket World Cup in Australia, between Australia and India, identified as the biggest women’s sports event ever, viewed by over 450,000 people. This years event is being broadcast on a 24/7 dedicated channel on Foxtel, and will be made available on Foxtel’s Kayo Freebies, following Nine’s decision not to obtain free-to-air broadcast rights for the competition.
Foxtel Group chief content and commercial officer, Amanda Laing, said: “With more than 2.4 million sports subscribers across our brands, the Foxtel Group is passionate about giving Australia’s biggest women’s sports and the stellar athletes that front them a platform for growth. There is no doubt 2022 is going to be a year of radical transformation in popularity and participation.
As women’s sport across different codes goes from strength to strength, it’s clear that Australians have a huge appetite for watching great sport regardless of whether it is being played by men or women. With greater exposure comes more fans, more sponsorship, and more attendance for the sports which we partner with, ultimately strengthening a sport by providing stronger revenue. The Foxtel Group is proud to be working to help deliver these benefits to women’s sport in Australia, broadcasting more than 4,700 hours of women’s sport across 15 different codes and 24 competitions, and this is just the beginning with more investment to come.”
Broadcaster’s support for women’s sport is being shown to be important not only for growing audiences, but also for inspiring participation, with two in five women’s sport viewers saying that had considered taking up the sport after tuning in on TV.
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