From men s football gifts to over 100 million copyrights, the road to the rise of value of the women s football European Cup

Text | Yang Yuman

Football, I'm back home.

In the early morning of July 28, the Women's European Cup finals, England played against Spain. Under the gaze of the royal family of both sides and 34,203 people in the game, English player Chloe Kelly once again held on to the "big scene" - starting with a signature jump action, and shot a goal full of the team's expectations into the Spanish goal.

The lioness awakened and after the two sides drew 1-1, England frozen the score at 3-1 in the penalty shootout, winning the championship trophy again after three years, firmly holding on to their top of Europe.

Source: Instagram@england

Saint Kojab, this stadium that has witnessed important events such as the European Cup for many times has been imprinted with a profound mark on women's sports this summer, and every number on the big screen on the scene is breaking the record of the European women's football team.

First of all, the most direct and shocking impact is the total number of viewers of more than 650,000 - an increase of nearly 15% compared to the 570,000 last year.

Even the group stage can attract more than 460,000 spectators, and 22 sold out in 24 games. In addition, the average number of seats exceeded 20,000 for the first time - even half of the eight venues had less than 17,000 seats.

The total number of viewers displayed on the large screen of the European Cup final of the women's football team. Source: UEFA official website

It can be said that these data are only the upper limit of the venue, not the limit of the charm of the European women's football team. The hot online viewing situation also confirms this fact. During the

event, American women's sports media justwomenssports said that the influence of the European Cup in the local and overseas broadcasts and social media reached new highs.

More than 10.2 million viewers in the UK alone watched the defending champion England women's football team defeated Italy in the semi-finals, directly setting the local TV station's ratings record so far this year.

In other countries, this women's football carnival craze triggered by Europe has not been blocked by time difference and distance.

The US Fox Sports "buzzer-beating" purchased the European Cup copyright of the Women's Football Team before the game, and thus gained rising ratings data - more than 920,000 American viewers watched the German team's victory over France. Although the final data has not been disclosed yet, the semi-final final will inevitably have higher ratings.

In China, Douyin started broadcasting from the semi-finals, and the peak popularity of the live broadcast room on the day of the finals exceeded one million early. The number of views on the topic #Women's Football European Cup# on domestic social media platforms exceeded 3 million.

It is worth mentioning that earlier, the transactions in core Asian markets such as China and Japan have not yet settled. Krypton asked UEFA about the specific situation and the reply received was: "It is still under negotiation." Judging from the subsequent broadcasting situation, UEFA is likely to have set up cooperation with platforms in several markets and have used this to break the pre-match estimate of US$100 million copyright mark.

Since the semi-finals, Douyin has exclusively broadcast the Women's Football European Cup in China, whether on-site or online, from the European continent to the Americas and Asia, thousands of miles apart... 16 top teams have spent 25 days and dozens of exciting competitions to spread the light and heat of women's football to a wider world.

Every record that has been broken is worth congratulations, and in addition to this, there are some profound changes that are taking place that are worth seeing - at the recognition level, women's football is no longer a foil for men's football or a "gift" when packaging sponsorship rights and copyrights, but a value body that is independently seen.

From the perspective of sponsorship, a number of well-known brands including Nike and adidas are very concerned about the finals. In addition to launching jerseys and sneakers, and "basic operations" such as social media store event previews and information, adidas immediately gave Spain comfort and encouragement after the game. Nike even directly used real money to wrap up the England return plane to graffiti, bringing the win-win benefits of sponsors and teams to the extreme.

Nike's aircraft custom-made for the English women's football team Picture source: Instagram@england

Copyright, according to statistics from sports agency GlobalData, the media copyright revenue of this women's football European Cup reached an unprecedented $99.54 million, compared with the previous $41.03 million, the increase "spinned" by 142%.

The string of numbers in the past is unimaginable - 20 years ago, the total revenue of the Women's Football European Cup, including broadcasting, sponsorship and tickets, was only US$4.27 million.

The reason for such a dilemma is not difficult to understand: in many countries, fans' enthusiasm for women's football cannot support the cost of bidding for copyrights on TV stations; the game cannot be broadcast, so naturally there is no more fans and sponsors pay attention... Even if UEFA signed a distribution agreement in the past, it was able to bundle the commercial rights of the women's football European Cup with the men's football team, but this is obviously far from enough for this vicious cycle of ecology.

Therefore, UEFA began to make more attempts to unleash the value of women's football on and off the stadium. At the event level, they have built a professional event system covering clubs and age groups at all levels around heavyweight competitions such as the Champions League and the European Cup; in terms of publicity, they have taken advantage of the strong atmosphere of European football to increase publicity and exposure of teams and players, aiming to create star players.

Women's Football Tournament Economy created by UEFA Picture source: UEFA Official Website

As UEFA Women's Football Director Nadine Kessler personally admitted, women's football is not a "money-making business". But it is precisely because of the years of hard work that "even losing money, you have to make a lot of money" that has enabled the Women's Football European Cup to gain many new records and beyond imagination this summer..

And this is just one goal in UEFA's strategy. According to its "unstoppable" plan announced at the end of 2024, UEFA will invest at least one billion euros to launch six professional leagues and develop more than 5,000 professional players only to make football the most sustainable and investment-worthy women's sport.

Source: UEFA official website

It is true that it is only a matter of time before the on-field data records are refreshed, but the touch and memories brought to hundreds of millions of fans this summer can exist forever.

At present, the champion team England went straight to Downing Street, London after returning to China, and had to participate in the grand mass parade celebration on the 29th local time; on the other hand, Spanish star Bonmarti posted on social media that the whole team has regrouped and is about to go to a new arena... Through these figures, we see that the value of women's sports is rising in the women's football wasteland that has been ignored by the world for a long time.