Insights from Jane Fernandez
The FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 is expected to break a multitude of records, as the biggest names in women’s football assemble for the tournament’s first ever visit to Oceania. It will “set the benchmark” for the future of the women’s game at home and overseas, explains Jane Fernandez, the spectacle’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), based in Sydney, where scores of fans took over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in June to promote the upcoming tournament.
Cited in our Women’s Football Business Report 2023, projections indicate more than 1.5 million tickets will be sold for the month-long event (July 20th – August 20th), surpassing the 1.35 million who attended matches during Canada 2015. Furthermore, the organizing committee fully expects the tournament to eclipse the global viewership of its previous editions – with TV and digital audiences hoped to top two billion, doubling the Women’s World Cup record set during France 2019.
To mark the upcoming global gathering – and the first to be jointly hosted by two confederations – N3XT Sports invited Fernandez the discuss ways this year’s tournament can leave a lasting legacy for domestic women’s and girls’ football in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the potential for seeding new business opportunities for the sport wholesale – both as an international product that appeals to the game’s commercial partners and to inspire a new generation of women’s football fans, players, and decision-makers.
1. What do you see as the biggest opportunity in the women’s game in 2023? How are you nurturing independence for the women’s game?
Well, I think it’s important to review FIFA’s Women’s Football Strategy, which has three main pillars. The first of those pillars is about increasing participation, a really strong target of having 60 million women and girls playing football by 2026. During the current four-year cycle, FIFA has injected more than US$1 billion into the development of the women’s game and is something we must build upon.
We want to make sure that we are enhancing the commercial value of the women’s game as well, and for the first time the FIFA Women’s World Cup has a standalone commercial pillar, which is seeing more partners want to be a part of and come onboard with the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023.
The third key pillar is about building the foundations which is about developing leadership opportunities for women in our game and to make sure we are developing leaders both on and off the pitch, ensuring we do everything possible to bring this strategy to life, nurture independence through those three areas, and continue to grow the game. We want more people in the stands and more people watching the game.
2. What appetite are you seeing for the women’s game in your domestic markets? And what impact will the 2023 Women’s World Cup have on the grassroots game?
As early as March, we had sold more than 600,000 tickets to the Women’s World Cup and have now ticked over one million tickets sold for the tournament. That just shows how much we are loving football here, domestically; the growth and momentum behind the game is phenomenal. From a domestic perspective, it is also great to see home-grown stars being selected in the Matildas squad and becoming household names. That’s simply fantastic for the development of the local game.
We need to ensure, thereafter, that we continue to grow the game every year beyond hosting the tournament in Australia and New Zealand. The FIFA Women’s World Cup will set the benchmark; with over 1.5 million people in our stadiums and more than two billion watching the tournament worldwide. The impact to the economy and the social outcome the legacy of this tournament aims to leave globally, regionally, and domestically cannot be underestimated.
3. What is your strategy when it comes to growing audience engagement for women’s football and what innovations can we expect?
We’re always focused on authentically engaging with our community to ensure that we grow the game and capturing the hearts and minds of the people who watch the game we know and love. We want to make sure we’re telling the stories of players, including a number of debutants who are going be here for the first time in a FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023 and have amazing stories to tell. That human element is what we want to make sure we’re showing throughout the tournament and gives fans an opportunity to be engaged with the players as well.
From a technology perspective, there is a heap of innovation we’re looking at. One is in relation to the ball itself. We launched the Adidas match ball earlier in the year and the technology within this ball ensures that fans can get even closer to the action, and they can see the precise data captured with the football, in the stadia and via broadcast. There are also new ways to engage fans through FIFA Fan Festivals for the first time at a FIFA Women’s World Cup, with a fan festival being hosted in each city. This is also another way to celebrate football and to see the interconnection between football, art, music, and culture.
4. Finally, how can the industry collaborate more to benefit the women’s game? And what role does the FIFA Women’s World Cup play in connecting stakeholders?
So, one of the beautiful things about women’s sport is it is such a collaborative sector. We all know how the rising tide can lift all boats and I have seen that myself from the moment the region held the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup, which really elevated the sport and put all women’s cricket under the spotlight.
In a similar fashion, the FIFA Women’s World Cup is going to take that to the next level by presenting the opportunity to cross-promote via our Beyond Greatness Champions ambassador programme for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which features stars from all different sports as well as female and male leaders across other industries. That’s another example of how we can drive collaboration and create momentum within women’s football, and women’s sport more broadly.