This Girl Can! – Has the Tide Turned for Women in Sport and Sponsorship?

RPMC's Vivienne Brown looks at the virtuous circle that exists within women's sport and how the This Girl Can initiative could help to break it.  

The UK Sponsorship Awards is celebrating sponsorship of women in sport with the launch of its new category Empowering Women Through Sport - http://www.sponsorship-awards.co.uk/categories

Much has been written recently about Women in Sport.  Just recently as I squished myself onto the delightful Northern Line with my copy of Stylist’s Suffragette Issue in hand I noticed the reference to the ‘This Girl Can’ initiative.  For those who have not been party to this yet, it is a campaign launched by Sport England’s CEO to encourage more women to participate in sport.  Apparently two million more men play a sport regularly than women in the UK.  There are many reasons for this and at last honest barriers including fear of judgement, appearance, ability and a woman’s perceived ‘correct’ priorities (i.e. caring for family) all having finally been acknowledged as contributing to this huge gap.   Undoubtedly behavioural change is required to address this.

The truth is women’s elite sport, in lots of cases, has played the part of poor relative to the men’s equivalent since time inmemorial.  Some may even have turned their nose up at the mere thought of women participating in some of those sports: football, rugby, cricket for example.  Certainly the financial rewards and critical investment from sponsors has been miles off the men’s.  Somewhat horrifyingly only 2-3% of sports written media is dedicated to women’s sport.  There is a clear link between media coverage and sponsorship.  Sponsorship brings money, development, profile so clearly a virtuous cycle exists here:

Poor Media Coverage = Low Profile = Lack of Sponsorship Investment = Low Participation

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