Women’s Euro final shows what’s possible

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This article was published 30/07/2022 (1252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Something amazing happens when women’s sport is platformed.

Or, rather, something predictable: people watch. Lots of them.

On Tuesday, for instance, Sheffield was abuzz with fan-zones and impromptu gatherings in the hours before that evening’s UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 semifinal between England and Sweden. There were parties on Devonshire Green and at the Peace Gardens, and revellers filled Division Street in the city centre, where Sweden supporters had established a sort of headquarters at Frog and Parrot pub.

A crowd of more than 28,000 then watched England prevail 4-0 at Bramall Lane — a triumph highlighted by Alessia Russo’s stunning back-heel nutmeg that put the hosts three-nil up and the match out of reach for the Olympic silver medallists.

The television numbers similarly dazzled.

An average audience of 7.9 million watched the midweek showdown, and viewership peaked at 9.3 million on BBC One, placing it among the U.K.’s top broadcasts of 2022. “International women’s football is now a consistent ratings winner, leaving other sports envious of the enormous interest it is attracting,” analyzed The Guardian.

The 10-million mark will almost certainly be surpassed, and likely thrashed, on Sunday when England and Germany meet in the final at Wembley (11 a.m., streaming free on UEFA TV). It’s momentum on which the already-popular Women’s Super League will look to capitalize when the new campaign kicks off in September.

Last season, as fans returned to stadiums with pandemic restrictions largely lifted, the WSL welcomed average crowds of about 2,200 to its games. Elsewhere in Europe, Barcelona twice sold out the 91,000-capacity Nou Camp for Champions League matches, and more than 43,000 supporters watched the PSG-Lyon semifinal at Parc des Princes. The final, between Lyon and Barcelona, attracted 3.6 million viewers on streaming rightsholder DAZN.

“There’s no doubt,” remarked FA Women’s Professional director Kelly Simmons in March 2021, “that when you look at football and professional sports, the media rights is the fundamental driver behind the revenue growth.”

It seems straightforward enough, but it’s a lesson being repeatedly failed here in Canada.

On July 18 — two days before 7.6 million viewers watched the Women’s Euro quarterfinal between England and Spain — Canada’s Olympic gold medal-winning squad took on World Cup-holders United States in the Euro-parallel CONCACAF W Championship final in Mexico. It was broadcast in relative anonymity on streaming service OneSoccer, and the CBC showed the match on a three-hour delay — past midnight in much of the country.

Naturally, TSN and Sportsnet drew the usual ire for not showing the tournament. The 24-hour cable networks, the now-familiar line repeats, should be “doing their part” in “promoting” women’s sport in this country.

Now, while it’s not the job of TV stations or journalists in other media to “promote” anything, there is some accuracy to the criticism. TSN, after all, took a little-known underage hockey tournament and turned it into the holiday season tradition of the World Junior Hockey Championship. And Sportsnet, recognizing the latent popularity of a very good men’s national soccer team, secured a partnership with OneSoccer to show the final round of World Cup qualifying.

So why hasn’t the women’s team garnered similar exposure? There are two foundational reasons.

For one thing, Canada’s sports channels are notoriously clunky. They go big on legacy properties and fill remaining time-slots with scraps, replays and blooper reels. Sportsnet, by way of example, went all-in on the NHL, ignoring demographic trends and basic cultural literacy that indicated hockey had already topped out. The evidence, unfortunately, is in the lay-offs.

Ask a network executive to supply an avatar and they’ll show you a white male of at least 40 who owns two vehicles and takes the family to the cottage on weekends. Women’s sport, and sports generally that are actually popular in the actual world, begin at a disadvantage.

An obvious solution here is, similar to the U.K., the public broadcaster. It has a mandate to advance Canadian culture, to literally “promote.” If the athletic endeavours of an entire gender require a boost to set them on a platform from which they can realize commercial viabilities already built in, it’s the CBC that should provide it.

Then there’s the adventure that is OneSoccer, its parent company Mediapro, and the sketchy Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) entity that essentially runs the game. There’s simply no televising national team matches without first confronting CSB, which, through OneSoccer, owns the broadcasting rights.

And they got them on a song — cut-rate from Canada Soccer, cash-strapped by its own mismanagement, much of it rather shady. One can hardly fault a network, or any above-board organization, from feeling queasy about getting into the Mediapro bed.

In other words — and it’s the same old story — Canada Soccer and the country’s overall sports culture is in its own way. And until that’s not the case, we’ll be flinging around the TV numbers and attendance figures from elsewhere to no avail.

But watch England-Germany on Sunday. It’s free on UEFA TV because no one thought it worthwhile to broadcast here. Watch the Women’s Euro final — the crowd, the spectacle, the exceptional football being played — and see what’s possible.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter @JerradPeters