Anna-Rose Gabbitass
2026-01-23 12:53:00
2025 was yet another landmark year in UK women’s sport – but the biggest questions about its route to commercial maturity are still unanswered.
There were two helpings of major international success for English women last year. In football, the Lionesses retained their title in dramatic fashion in the UEFA Women’s Euro in Switzerland. Then the Red Roses stamped their authority all over a highly impressive Women’s Rugby World Cup to take the crown on home turf.
Those achievements have helped keep women’s sport high on the agenda: 32% of fans and 62% of professionals – including 71% of women working in the industry – say they have become more interested in it over the past 12 months.
It will be cricket’s turn to stage another global event on these shores in 2026, with England and Wales hosting the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in June and July. Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB Director of the Professional Women’s Game, explores the possibilities of that tournament in her contribution to the Sport Industry Report 2026. She also stresses the importance of building the commercial and community infrastructure to support longer-term development.
A new brand environment
Sponsors are increasingly waking up to the unique potential of women’s sport. Still, it is also a space that deserves and demands a properly tailored strategy.
In 2025 ELEMIS became the first skincare brand to enter Formula 1, signing a multi-year agreement with Aston Martin Aramco. In this chapter the company’s Global Chief Partnerships Officer, Amy Mansell, emphasises the need to add value, not noise, through female-focused sponsorships – amplifying women’s voices and setting the conversation on their terms.
52% of sport industry professionals believe women’s sport already offers better value to brands and broadcasters than second-tier men’s sports and competitions. Among respondents to the survey who identified as women’s sports fans, 73% said it offers a more inclusive environment, while the same number also say it inspires them and their families to be more active.
More broadly, though, 30% of fans and just 10% of industry professionals said they would choose to watch women’s sport over men’s. There is a clear case to keep evolving the women’s sport offer – though debate persists over the right way to do so.
The next leap forward
Obstacles remain in the path of women’s sport, with a gender split emerging within the industry cohort as to their importance.
Among those who follow women’s sport, female professionals were much more likely than their male peers to identify social attitudes (73% to 56%) and visibility of coverage (72% to 48%), as well as player pathways and grassroots infrastructure (67% to 46%), as barriers to continued progress.
In the full survey sample, 42% of fans and 85% of professionals who follow women’s sport pointed to ‘funding and investment’ as the greatest current impediment.
The future identity of women’s sports properties is also an ongoing point of discussion. 58% of fans and 64% of professionals believe ‘competitions and formats of women’s sport should be adapted for women, rather than a copy of the men’s format’, while 53% of fans and 66% of professionals think women’s sport ‘should pursue an alternative event experience, rather than copy men’s sport’.
41% of fans would encourage clubs to build on their overall identity across men’s and women’s sport, with just 15% believing they should ‘develop a fanbase for women’s sport with its own identity and traditions’. 44%, meanwhile, suggested ‘a balanced mixture of both’.
Those will be the choices weighed by even the most successful domestic sports competitions, such as The Hundred – entering a new era in 2026 after huge external investment last year – and football’s Women’s Super League.
