What Brands Can Learn From Women's Football

Women’s football isn’t some underground subculture. It’s here and it’s mainstream – and that’s not based on a feeling. Sky Sports reported earlier this year that 80% of UK fans follow both men’s and women’s sports. So why are brands still treating the women’s game like it’s niche, a novelty – or worse, an afterthought?

The hype around the Women’s Euros was huge – packed stadiums, wall-to-wall coverage, records broken and genuine cultural momentum. With the Women’s Super League about to kick off, you’d think brands would be lining up to get involved. But the response so far has been muted. In SEED CLUB, the discussion turned to just how few mainstream names have really stepped up, despite all the opportunity.

Hits

Nike was all over the Euros, but you should also focus on bringing together real fans and building community, it’s the grassroots organisers and their watch parties (including Clwb Creative Cymru and Berlin’s Gyals Got Game) who, according to Sibling Studio, really own the space when it comes to strong brand fit and cultural execution. It makes sense – they’ve been there from the start.

Beyond that, Tinder tapped into one of the most relevant insights around women’s football: the lore of WOSO relationships (see below). Their brand film starring Man City’s Kerstin Casparij and her girlfriend Ruth Brown (aka a self-proclaimed WAG) retells how they met on the app – and, unusually for branded storytelling, it actually feels believable. As far as I’ve seen, no one else has picked up on this space, so credit where it’s due.

EE’s That Lionesses Podcast with Harriet Rose is another example of a brand platforming players as more than just athletes. Each time it cropped up on my FYP it felt like a show I’d want to watch, giving the Lionesses space to appear as whole people. That said, the connection back to the brand itself was pretty tenuous (outside of sponsorship).

Misses 

What stands out most is the lack of major, mainstream brands meaningfully stepping up to platform players. Take the Lionesses’ Downing Street visit after their Euros win: they all turned out in Marks & Spencer. They looked great – but the moment also exposed how absent other big British fashion brands were. Imagine the statement if Burberry had dressed the squad that day. M&S seized the timing, while bigger names simply weren’t there.

Representation 

On a recent airport stop, I flipped through the sports magazine racks: wall-to-wall male athletes on every cover. The only major women’s football cover around the Euros was Lucy Bronze on Women’s Health – which, visually, felt off. By contrast, nothing has rivalled Martine Rose x Nike’s 2023 campaign, launched during the Women’s World Cup. Their aim was to “close the gender gap,” with Rose stressing, “there’s no gender attached to the suit.” The result was fluid, authentic and expressive – players shown as themselves, not a projection of what a footballer should look like. We need more of this.

Hot Takes

• Pick up where Tinder left off: a WAGs series, featuring Jess Carter’s wife Ann-Catrin Berger, Leah Williamson’s girlfriend Elle Smith and Chloe Kelly’s husband.
• Sports brands: lean into the Leah Williamson-as-the-next-Beckham narrative. Everyone’s already saying it.
• To brands that think of themselves as bold: respond to that LBC caller who said women’s football is being shoved “down our throats.” That’s your campaign brief.
• Domino’s x Ella Toone. If you know, you know.
• What are they going to be wearing in the Bend It Like Beckham sequel?

Final Thoughts 

Even though women’s football is mainstream now, it still lags far behind the men’s game – and the machine around it. Deloitte predicts the pay gap won’t close until 2040. Could brands step in to help accelerate that shift?

At the same time, there’s the balance: raising awareness and bringing in funding without over-commercialising the sport. The joy of women’s football lies in its rawness – Chloe Kelly’s post-Euros street party, Ella Toone eating pizza mid-interview, the Lionesses chanting “Michelle’s on fire…” Those moments can’t be manufactured, but they can be protected.

Writer Gem Fletcher calls for a “re-imagining of sports culture at large,” noting that women’s football’s relative freedom from bad marketing has allowed players and fans to stay unapologetically themselves. That’s the key for brands: co-create with players, listen to fans and build campaigns that feel authentic to the people at the centre of it.

If brands get that right, women’s football doesn’t have to be swallowed up by over-commercialisation. Instead, it has the chance to carve out a new kind of relationship between sport, culture and commerce – one where players finally call the shots.