Women’s football is entering a decisive phase. Attendances, valuations, sponsorships and media deals are rising, but commercial momentum alone will not determine the future of the game. What matters is who shapes its culture, how value is shared and whether fans are treated as an audience or as part of something they can truly belong to.
Whose Game Is It Going To Be? brings together 11 theses on women’s football, sports culture and brand investment – and the choices that will define the game long after Brazil 2027.
Why This Zine?
Women’s football is more than a growth category within sport. It is a culture shaped by rituals, identities, communities and the place a club or player comes to hold in someone’s life. Those forces are harder to measure than reach or revenue, but they are what turn attention into lasting fandom.
The global tournament in Brazil in 2027 will introduce more people, media and brands to the game than ever before. That creates opportunity, but also risk. A tournament can accelerate interest, but it cannot create lasting relevance on its own. It is a moment, not a destination.
Unlike many established sports, women’s football is still open enough to be shaped. How investment is directed, how commercial value is distributed, whose voices carry weight and how growth affects existing fan communities are not settled questions. The decisions being made now will influence the game for decades.
For brands, the real question is therefore no longer simply how many people they can reach. It is what their involvement will contribute to women’s football when the spotlight moves on. Every investment either helps build a community or simply borrows an audience. One creates a lasting place in the game. The other rents attention until the budget runs out – and fans understand the difference.
The Key Insights on Women's Football and Culture
The dominant commercial framing presents women’s football as an emerging market with a growth curve to follow. But a curve is something you follow. A culture is something you help shape and sustain.
Many of the conventions, institutions and commercial models surrounding the women’s game are still developing. That creates a rare opportunity to make deliberate choices about what the sport should become and who should benefit from its growth.
When Angel City launched in the NWSL, it embedded community impact and player participation into its commercial model from the beginning. The example shows that culture does not have to sit outside the business model. It can help define it.
The audience overlap with men’s football is often under 20%, yet much of the broadcast language, transfer drama and controversy-driven punditry surrounding the women’s game has been inherited from men’s sport.
More than three in four fans say they do not see enough coverage of women’s football. The opportunity is not simply to give the game more space within existing formats. It is to create a media language that reflects its players, personalities, access and culture.
For brands, this means helping to build women’s football media and content – not merely buying advertising around it.
Ticket sales and viewing figures are important indicators, but they are outcomes rather than the final objective. Lasting growth begins when supporters see themselves as stakeholders in a club, league or movement – not simply as customers purchasing access to a match.
Every commercial decision is also an audience decision. Pricing, venues, merchandise, media access and sponsorship all influence who feels invited into the game and who remains part of it.
Growth and monetisation cannot be treated as separate phases. The instinct to capture value before it has been created can undermine the very community on which the future of the sport depends.
Eventisation works. Move a fixture to a major stadium, add production and spectacle, and a large crowd can follow. But an event audience and a committed football community are not automatically the same.
The critical task is converting a special occasion into a lasting habit. If eventisation displaces the supporters who sustain a club throughout the season, short-term revenue can come at the expense of long-term loyalty.
The real measure of success is therefore not only how many people attend once, but how many choose to return. Getting a fan to come once is a different challenge from giving them a reason to stay.
For many supporters, buying a scarf, shirt or hoodie is the first visible act of choosing a team – often before attending a match. Two-thirds of women’s sports merchandise buyers have made a purchase without going to a live game.
Yet for every nine pieces of men’s merchandise, the women’s game offers only one, and many fans still struggle to find products they would genuinely wear.
Merchandise is not simply a byproduct of fandom. It is a route into women’s football culture, a form of identity and a marketing asset whenever it is worn beyond the stadium.
Who is it for?
Whose Game Is It Going To Be? is written for the people shaping the business and culture of women’s football:
- CMOs and brand leaders looking beyond conventional reach metrics.
- Sponsorship and sports marketing teams planning investments ahead of Brazil 2027.
- Cultural and brand strategists who want to build with the game rather than borrow from it.
- Investors and operators working across women’s sport.
- Clubs, leagues and federations defining what the next era of the game should look like.
From the NWSL and Women’s Super League to the Frauen-Bundesliga, the same strategic questions are emerging: Who is the game being built for? Who benefits from its growth? And what role should brands play in its future?
Whose Game Is It Going To Be?
The future of women’s football is still taking shape. That is what makes this moment so valuable – and so fragile. Every sponsorship, media partnership and investment influences what the game becomes, who feels part of it and how its value is shared.
The brands and partners that matter in the long term will be those that contribute more than visibility. Read all eleven theses and explore how culture, commerce and community can shape the next era of women’s football.
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About the Authors
Written by Christine Jiang and Kath Curran of Monarch Collective and Sven Labenz of Serviceplan Social & Culture, Whose Game Is It Going To Be? brings together two complementary perspectives. Monarch Collective is an investment firm focused exclusively on women’s sports, backing teams, leagues and adjacent businesses to help build enduring sports institutions. Serviceplan Social & Culture is the Serviceplan Group’s specialist agency for social media, cultural strategy and engagement, helping brands build meaningful relevance through culture and communities. Together, the authors approach women’s football as both a business opportunity and a cultural institution – asking not only how the game can grow, but what kind of game that growth should create.
Photo Credits: All pictures are kindly provided by Monarch Collective, Viktoria Berlin, Boston Legacy FC and Angel City FC.
