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The Gameplan for Growth - The Journey to Double the Fanbase

The FA has reviewed the journey to grow the women's and girls' game fanbase.

Throughout May and June, The FA reviewed the impact of The Gameplan for Growth strategy on the women’s and girls’ game.

Launched in March 2017, the strategy pledged to tackle ambitious targets to double participation, double the game’s fanbase and create a high-performance system and world-class talent pipeline for England teams to achieve consistent success on the world stage.

After four seasons the strategy is now concluding, and The FA will outline its continued support for the women’s and girls’ game with the launch of the 2020-24 vision in the coming months.

This week, The FA reviews The Gameplan for Growth’s journey to doubling the game’s fanbase.

Please find below the results and a first-person narrative from Marzena Bogdanowicz [The FA’s Head of Commercial & Marketing for Women’s Football].

2020 TARGETS:

  • Increase attendances at England Senior Women’s matches from 11,000 to 22,000
  • Increase average Barclays FA WSL attendances from 1,047 to 2,020
  • Increase peak television viewing figures of the Barclays FA WSL from 46,000 to 92,000

England Senior Women:

  • 11.7 million viewers tuning in to watch the England Senior Women’s FIFA Women’s World Cup Semi-Final in 2019
  • A record crowd for England Senior Women, 77,768 vs Germany at Wembley [November 2019]
  • Crowds of over 20,000 at St Mary’s, Southampton [25,601 vs Wales in 2018]; The Amex, Brighton [20,076 vs New Zealand in 2019]; the Riverside, Middlesbrough [29,238 vs Brazil in 2019] and Wembley [77,768 vs Germany in 2019]
  • The creation of first-ever Lionesses Supporters Club with over 18,000 members
  • The launch of @Lionesses Twitter and Instagram pages with over 400k followers

Domestic:

  • Average attendance of 3,072 in the Barclays FA WSL in 2019-20
  • 174% increase in attendance at Barclays FA WSL games from 2016 to 2019-20
  • The creation of Women’s Football Weekend in November 2019 with a cumulative weekend attendance of 77,323 in the Barclays FA WSL and FA Women’s Championship
  • A record Barclays FA WSL crowd of 38,262 for Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal in November 2019
  • 257% increase in the number of domestic games broadcast from 2016 to 2019-20
  • Televised peak audiences for Barclays FA WSL up by 231% from 2016 to 2019-20
  • A league peak television audience of 270,000 for Chelsea vs Tottenham Hotspur in September 2019
  • Record peak television audience of 2.2m on BBC One for the 2019 Women’s FA Cup Final
  • Record Women’s FA Cup Final attendance of 45,423 in May 2018
  • The creation of The FA Player with nearly 100,000 subscribers in the first season
  • FA Player subscribers from over 150 countries
  • Four international Barclays FA WSL broadcast deals in Mexico & Central America, Scandinavia, Australia and Israel for the 2019-20 season

 

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The Gameplan for Growth - Journey to Double the Fanbase
The FA has reviewed the journey to double the women's and girls' game fanbase.

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