Arianna Criscione is currently a goalkeeper and the Sponsorship Manager for the women’s football team at Paris Saint-Germain. After attending UCLA and graduating from Boston College, she turned professional and played in Italy, France, Sweden, Netherlands and Norway, and earned several caps with the Italian Women’s National Team, as well as appearances in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
Throughout this interview, we deep dive into her views on what is N3XT for women’s football and the opportunities that lie ahead.
1. What’s the current state of women’s football? And where are we heading?
I think women’s football is in a good place. And by good I mean, conversations are starting to be had around it and we see more and more clubs, associations, and stakeholders taking part in the discussions and development.
2019 was a landmark year for women’s football with the success of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup from reaching a record-breaking figure of 1.12 billion viewers, to in-game attendance, to sponsorship opportunities, and social media engagement. While many people saw the COVID-19 pandemic as an existential threat to women’s football, I personally saw it as a huge opportunity to take women’s football to the next level. The global pandemic has shown us where the gaps in the strategies and structures are and where the whole industry needs to improve. From here, we can strip it clean and start building a better structure.
2. Women’s football is still laying a foundational path of growth. What can clubs, leagues and federations do to accelerate this process?
Football stakeholders would benefit from approaching women’s football from a strategic standpoint. After evaluating the current context, a strategic plan must include a clear KPI-driven business & sporting strategy and must account for differences in geographic, cultural and financial contexts. It is equally important to set realistic objectives with short-term wins that drive momentum and build on continued successes.
The combination of business & sporting objectives is important because on the field performances must be leveraged with the right structures, including economic, marketing, business & development objectives. This is why a well-structured and defined strategy is a crucial piece to propelling a women’s football venture forward.
With limited resources, it is important to target investments in high-return initiatives. On the sporting side of the coin, this is about squad management, player development, improved training, analytics, data and injury prevention. On the business side of the coin, this is about the brand, digital engagement, marketing, communications and building out the revenue streams.
For me, an investment means you want to have a return, and this is not always a financial one. That is why a strategy should outline these KPIs and communicate them to all the stakeholders involved in the women’s football venture.
3. We heard many conversations about professionalizing women’s football, is this actually the route that the industry needs to take?
Yes and no. I think the women’s game needs a better structure at the top of the pyramid and at the moment this is usually coming from the federations. FIFA has already started to step up and understand that the needs of women are different. They have created minimum working conditions that protect players once they get pregnant and help them return to play. Federations and leagues should consider creating a sustainable structure for the teams in their highest divisions, helping them create a feasible professionalization and regulation in order to help the clubs make the transition. Just ordering clubs to become professional will only hurt the game and bankrupt some teams. People hear the word professionalization and think this means players get paid. This is only one small factor. There are many other factors that need to be involved such as having a full time coaching staff, medical staff, manager, sporting director, sponsorship, media/communications and a few other positions (these roles can vary from team to team and can leverage the men’s team’s resources at the start). Just paying players more money is not the way to make the game sustainable for years to come.
¨A strategic plan must include a clear KPI-driven business & sporting strategy and must account for differences in geographic, cultural and financial contexts.¨
4. Sponsors play a crucial role in providing a financial base to support the growth of the game. Tell us from your experience what the value proposition of women’s football is from a sponsorship perspective? How should sponsors be looking at women’s football?
The sponsorship proposition varies from team to team. Some already have a brand and a history while others are new to the game and need to build identity. Either way, sponsors can gain value from a partnership with a women’s team. From personal brand building and aligning their products to certain values to showing the world they believe in women and that their brand is a part of the change we are seeing. The important part for me is to understand what each piece brings to the table and create meaningful activations for both parties. For a brand just to give money to a team and then leave it at that misses the full potential that is available. To build this mindset, a partnership approach with shared objectives is key.
5. If you received a big sponsorship for the female league and could invest it in ONE area of the league where would you invest these resources and why (e.g. players’ salaries, marketing to attract fans, development of coaches and technical staff, bringing international players, youth development)?
If I could only pick one, first I would like to see a bigger investment into digital. The media only covers 4% of women’s football, so we need to find our ‘spot’ somewhere else, and I think the digital landscape is where we can have a big impact not only by promoting women’s football and to keep our audience informed but also by reaching new audiences, engaging directly with our fans, and showcasing the values of women’s football. For that to happen, clubs, leagues and federations need to shift to becoming storytellers and digital marketers, like a media company. With the right people, technology partnerships, and modern digital tools, they can quickly grow the revenue streams and leverage new business models made possible by digital.
6. We have seen some investors investing in women’s football, more specifically in the NWSL. Do you think that will continue to be a trend? What’s the ROI for investors who are willing to invest in women’s football?
Yes, I do believe that this will continue to be a trend. We have already seen investment groups coming from the US to Europe to invest in men’s teams so why shouldn’t they do the same with women’s? In fact, if I were an investor, I would make my bets on clubs with solid women’s teams or build stand-alone women’s clubs. There is a big opportunity there and clearly, people are seeing it as we see with Angel City. Angel City is a club being treated like a startup and investors are flocking to be a part of it, from athletic stars like Serena Williams to Hollywood stars like Natalie Portman.
As we have already seen, powerful brands such as VISA have aligned themselves with women’s football from their sponsoring of individual players to sponsoring UEFA. VISA has successfully positioned itself in the women’s game. The return is clear. It has increased brand awareness, reached new audiences, created new sponsorship activations, and offered better value to all its partners.
I hope to see more brands coming into the conversation by wanting to show their values through women’s football and also I hope we can see foreign investments coming into European women’s football.
7. You have actively taken steps to prepare for your post-athlete career through education. Do you think clubs, leagues and federations can benefit from adopting and offering educational services to their members/players?
100%! I think more and more players are understanding the value of their personal brand and at the moment they really invest in it from a sporting perspective. But once they retire their market value drops substantially. Why not start investing in your future today? This not only benefits the players as it will give them other purposes and allow them to separate themselves as a player from the person. They can create a holistic identity not just revolving around sport but also other interests. I think the US proves this by their university system. Athletes go to school just like ‘normal students’ and they play high level sport, so clearly it’s possible. I don’t think players need full course loads. But specific training and educational resources built around their schedule and interests would be ideal. This would give an opportunity to sponsors to be a part of something amazing. And the clubs to show the players how much they value them not to mention indirectly boosting the club’s brand at the same time.
8. What’s N3XT for you? What would you like to do after your football career is over?
I want to be president of UEFA! But until then, I want to continue building the women’s game. I would love to use my experience and creativity to help football stakeholders to build sustainable and accelerated blueprints that raise the women’s game. I am a huge competitor and I love winning but when we talk about strategy, structure and development I think this is a universal objective and needs to be worked on together. On the field, we go to battle but off the field, we need to work together to elevate the game. Sport and entertainment are starting to cross over in ways we have never seen before. And women’s football is an entertaining product, we cannot have only a handful of teams really invested and prepared to elevate the game. We need tighter and more exciting leagues where five or more teams are competing for the league title, not only two. We need it to be a true relegation battle that is only decided in the last few weeks of the season. Not teams only making five points the whole season. To do this more teams need to create and build a sustainable long-term strategy. And I want to help them do it.