Last update on. From the section Women's Football
One of the reasons for audience growth is a new broadcast deal with the FA Women's Super League.
A new report claims that women's sport will set a record in British broadcast audiences by 2021.
Futures Sport is collaborating with the Women's Sport Trust to estimate that 51.1 million people will be reached by 2021. This figure is up from 46.8m in 2019.
In 2020, women's sports were hit hard by the pandemic. 27.3m reached their peak.
Researchers believe that The Hundred cricket tournament is responsible for the increase in audience and the new broadcast deal with the FA Women's Super League.
The research also examined the coverage of sport by multiple broadcasters.
It was found that coverage of the Tokyo Olympic Games by the BBC was gender parity with 47% of audio mentions referring to female athletes.
The women's game received 47% of the live coverage hours on Sky and BBC.
The WSL's broadcast deal with Sky and BBC has brought in 7.87 million new viewers. 89% of viewers who watched football on Sky or BBC have never seen BT Sport during the four previous seasons.
The report revealed that women's sports still trail men's in repeat viewers. For example, in the women's Hundred, only 45% of viewers watched it more than once while 55% viewed the men's Hundred twice or more.
The Women's Sport Trust noted that it's not just major events such as the Olympics and World Cups driving growth.
Tammy Parlour is the chief executive officer and co-founder at the Women's Sport Trust. She said, "It's great to see the changes that's occurring as other women's sports events start to gain momentum.
"This trend must now become a routine so they come back on a consistent basis and make greater emotional connections to the top female athletes and teams."
