FEDev-WF · Developing Fan Engagement For Increasing Participation, Attendance and Commercial Value in Women's Football
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-10-11 → 2023-10-10
- EU contribution
- €196,591
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Developing Fan Engagement For Increasing Participation, Attendance and Commercial Value in Women's Football
The FEDev-WF project primarily addresses the challenge of inadequate fan engagement in Women’s Football (WF), particularly in Ireland, compared to Men's Football. Despite notable improvements in stadium attendance and viewership for WF in recent years, this growth remains inconsistent and unsustainable, largely confined to national teams. Many countries, including Ireland, still face significant challenges in engaging fans at the club level. A critical gap exists in research on WF fandom. Furthermore, strategies for increasing fan engagement at WF clubs are under-researched, and there is a noticeable absence of a framework for fan engagement in WF. The overall objectives of this project were: 1. Identifying factors shaping WF fandom. 2. Investigating current fan engagement practices in successful WF clubs. 3. Designing a holistic fan engagement framework for WF. The project holds significant importance for society for several reasons: 1. Promoting gender equality in sports. 2. Economic and Social Benefits: Boosting fan engagement in WF offers substantial economic and social benefits. Enhanced engagement not only leads to higher attendance and viewership but also boosts related economic activities. Increased interest and visibility in WF encourage greater participation among girls in sports, fostering inclusivity and equality in athletics. Additionally, WF, known for its family-oriented atmosphere at stadiums, provides an excellent opportunity for family entertainment, contributing to leisure opportunities and the mental well-being of sports enthusiasts. 3. Policy Implications: The project's evidence-based recommendations are set to significantly impact policy-making in sports governing bodies, aiming to foster the growth and sustainability of WF from grassroots to professional levels. These policies will focus on developing and retaining young female talent, particularly in football academies.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
European women’s football has come a long way in recent years, yet it is still considerably underdeveloped. Football being one of the most revered forms of popular culture in Europe offers a unique window into evolution of roles and representation of achievements of women, but despite significant strides in recent years the women’s game is still far behind. Fewer sponsorship deals, lower stadium attendance and commercial value were a few of the problems with which women’s football struggled, even before the Covid-19 outbreak. Now, the sustainable survival of the game is under threat. In both industry and academia there is a gap in attention to women’s football fandom, particularly from the organisations’ side, and its potentials for commercial value creation and financial sustainability of the game. Taking the high potential of fandom to generate sustainable income, the present project aims to develop fan engagement practice to increase attendance and commercial value in women’s football. I will employ a novel interdisciplinary, comparative participatory approach involving academia and industry stakeholders, identifying the unique attributes and current state of women’s football fandom and key components of an effective fan engagement framework for teams and associations. The project will be conducted in the context of Ireland and will be hosted by Dublin City University. To learn about fan engaging planning, practices and data analysis in the industry, I will carry out two secondments in two well-known sport marketing companies in Europe. Collectively, the outcomes of this project will provide a novel understanding of gendered perceptions of women’s football in Ireland and Europe, and how fan engagement can be tailored to women’s football for better commercialisation. The findings would help the industry engage fans effectively for the survival of the game, and future research can build up on the ideas and findings in different countries and women’s sports.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY · DublinCoordinatorIreland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union