Last month, The Athletic published the findings of our male fans of women’s football survey. Almost 5,000 men responded, but we wanted to know even more, particularly about how their experiences were linked to men’s football.
Women’s football is at an interesting stage in its development. Often financially reliant on their male counterparts, women’s teams can be boosted by their connections to historic men’s clubs even as they forge their own identities. The ‘one club’ model has accelerated the growth of the women’s professional game, but the ultimate aim is for women’s teams to become profitable and identifiable in their own right. They are well on their way to the latter, but the business model is tending to tie them together, for better or worse. One result has been an influx of fans from the men’s game.
Ninety-one per cent of our survey respondents followed men’s football before they began engaging with women’s football, a statistic that begets a lot of questions. Will women’s football remain secondary in their affections? Did they hold any preconceived ideas? That 74 per cent support the same men’s and women’s team suggests the ‘one club, two teams’ model so central to the Women’s Super League’s (WSL) development is doing its job —…
