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4 million new fans for women’s sport in the UK

A recent YouGov study commissioned by public service broadcaster the BBC, to understand the levels of fandom of women’s sport in the UK in October 2021 and again in 2022, has revealed that women’s sport has attracted an estimated four million more fans in the UK over the past year.

UK public service broadcaster the BBC commissioned two studies carried out by YouGov to understand the levels of fandom of women's sport in the UK in October 2021 and again in August 2022, the study revealed that women's sport has attracted an estimated four million more fans over the past year.

With huge triumphs in women’s sport this year including the Lionesses’ win at the Women’s EURO, gold medals for the women’s GB curling team at the Beijing Winter Olympics and other medal successes in the World Athletics Championships and the Commonwealth Games, women’s sport has been propelled to new heights.  

The research also found that 41.5% of respondents, the equivalent of more than 22 million adults in the UK, identify as fans of women’s sport, falling into the following categories big fans, main event supporters or casual followers.

Women’s soccer has had the biggest increase in fans, 8.7 million more than in 2021, with the number of people classing themselves as big fans of women’s soccer having tripled between the studies.

The studies also illustrated how individual sports are at different stages of their fandom development cycle depending on how established they are. Sports such as tennis, athletics, winter sports, gymnastics and cycling have larger fan bases of seven years or longer, whereas football, rugby, cricket and combat sports have gained followers more recently with their fandom still in relative infancy.

At Story10 we really understand the value of the sports news agenda and believe that by working together with our partners involved in women’s sport, we can create authentic news stories, that works alongside event action, to increase the visibility of women’s sport and place it and female athletes at the heart of the global sports conversation throughout the year, whilst building a long-lasting narrative and highlighting key stakeholder messages.

Story10 provides a global platform to amplify your purpose-led messaging within women’s sport. Find out how we can help you through our network of owned and earned media channels.

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Sources

SportsPro. Women’s sport gains 4m UK fans in 2022 – https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/womens-sport-uk-study-2022-yougov-bbc-womens-euro/

BBC. Women's sport fandom is growing in the UK – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/63457021