Who’s watching women’s sport? With Chelsea Women CEO Aki Mandhar

0:04David Cushnan:I'm David Cushnan, Content Director at Leaders. And I'm Peter Kent, Director of Research Services at GWI. In this series from Leaders and GWI, we'll delve into demographics, sentiment and attitudes as women's sport continues to develop. And we'll do so through a data lens, examining our latest research on women's sport fandom and with the help of some senior women from across the women's sport landscape. Let's get into the numbers. Welcome to Who's Watching Women's Sport. And welcome along to the first episode in our new series, Who's Watching Women's Sport. Peter, great to have you in the studio.

0:39David Cushnan:We're going to set up what this series is all about. And at the heart of it is a bundle of great research that you and the folks at GWI have put together. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yes, you're absolutely right. what we've been looking at what we're interested in is understanding how the landscape of women's sport fandom has changed and it really has changed it's moved on considerably in quite a short period of time we're talking about kind of single digit years here and i'm really excited to share some of that knowledge that we've learned and also to have some really interesting conversations with people actually involved on the ground in that industry yeah we are going to do that through a data lens, as we said, we're going to throw some data points at our guests over the course of the series.

1:28David Cushnan:First up, we've just finished a fascinating and in-depth conversation with Aki Mandar, the CEO at Chelsea Women. Aki is great, well known to lots of people across the sports industry and, of course, the women's football industry as well. I really enjoyed the conversation. And And what did you take from it, Peter? What were your key takeaways? Yeah, I agree. I also really enjoyed it. I think Aki's just such an interesting person to talk to. You could talk to her for hours. But for me, it was really getting that sense from her that she feels like they're in the middle of a journey, that it's not done, which is interesting.

2:09I think you could actually look at some of the numbers, especially some of the numbers I threw at her, to be like, hey, mission accomplished. You know, we've done it. You know, women's sport is mainstream. Women's football is as popular as it's ever been. but you can see the ambition that Aki has not just for Chelsea but for the WSL for women's football for women's sport it really means a lot to her and you know she really believes that it can grow into something even bigger than what it's already become.

2:33David Cushnan:Yeah we're going to talk to her about some of the partnerships that the club is building and some really fascinating new categories the tribalism or maybe lack of tribalism in women's football certainly compared to men's football and the world cup as well which is months away but we're going to get an insight into how a club like chelsea is already thinking about the the world cup and the momentum that will be generated off the back of that yeah that's that's right and i think the way that Aki has got the ability to look at football very holistically and understand the role that the World Cup will play in Chelsea Women's, the role that Chelsea Women's will play in the World Cup.

3:17I feel like she's really, you know, gives a great sense of what that might look like next year and kind of what an exciting year it could be.

3:25David Cushnan:It's a must-listen conversation. Let's get into it. And welcome to the studio, Aki Mandar, the CEO at Chelsea Women. Aki Manda, the CEO of Chelsea Women, is with us in the studio and it's lovely to have you with us. How are you doing? Good. Good, thanks. Great to be here. Thank you for doing it. At a very busy starting point of a long WSL Champions League season, what's the mood? What's the feeling? Have you pre-seasoned well? I think we did actually. I think we were really lucky to pre-season as well as we did. We had a lot of change and to be able to spend time together in Oz and New Zealand just really helped build those bonds and those new relationships.

4:11And then we had the qualifier for Champions League, which was an extra level of competition that we didn't have maybe in Oz. And that was really helpful. Yeah, to really bond the team.

4:26David Cushnan:good stuff um as trailed we've got we've got a little bit of data to throw you peter is here and has the numbers at his fingertips um because we're really keen to dig into not only everything that's happening at chelsea women but but some broader thoughts on direction of travel some of the trends that we're all seeing and experiencing when it comes to uh women's sport and how it continues to to grow and develop so Peter fire away with with some some key numbers and we'll get Aki's reaction great thank you and really well pleasure to meet you Aki I think at GWI what we're interested in is looking at the way that the world is changing and not just with sports actually with all sorts of different industries and categories but we've noticed a particular trend a particular dynamic trend a fast change happening with women's sports and I think a good summary of this number is so we ask so we interview a million people a year and we ask them a question which of these sporting competitions do you follow and the categories by some are you know men some are women some are mixed but when we're looking just at the women's competitions the number of people who self-describe as a fan has jumped from 620 million people globally to 920 million people globally in just three years so we're looking at sort of a near 40 i think it's a 47 % increase in three years.

5:51And what I'm very interested in is who are those new people? So who are those 300 million new people and what are they like? And I'm just curious from your perspective, when we narrow down Chelsea Women's, who's also seen an immense amount of growth, and we'll go into some of the numbers for WSL. From your perspective, how have things changed for Chelsea in the last three years? Have you noticed a new kind of profile of fan or who's starting to follow Chelsea? who wouldn't have been beforehand? Yeah, we have. I think the sort of original OG fan would be the red or blue till you die. You know, I'm a Chelsea generational fan at home or they have loved women's football, women's sports and they have been a part of the Chelsea family for a long time.

6:42I think with the Euros and with the World Cup coming, but with the Euros especially, that fandom has grown into household names more than a generational, I have to be blue because everyone else in my house is. So the reach and the access that people are now getting, along with the individual player interest they're now having a relationship with, that has drawn a different type of fan to the ground. So we've got so many segments that I could go through, but broadly there's two. it's football and they're here for the rest of the day. So it's football and, or it's the and, because they're here for the day out and maybe see some great players.

7:26And then the football is like, oh wow, that was pretty cool as well. And so I guess half of the stadium is here because they really want us to win the league and they want us to win a trophy and they want to see some amazing football. And the other half is here because they really just want women's sports to do well. And they really want to see Lucy Bronze or Hannah Hampton and they want to sit and drink in their seat and they want to buy jewellery that says that they're closer to Kira Walsh. So there's this different relationship that you don't get at men's football where you will follow a player and that player who loves Hannah might then go and watch Arsenal and that's fine.

8:12So they will bounce between, between sort of like, I guess the shortcut would be a half and half scarf, but maybe there's more than two colours within that scarf and you can go and watch whichever game you want that weekend because you care about women's sports. And if they're coming at the top of funnel for, I care about women's sports, I care about women's football, I care about London clubs who are on this weekend, oh, I really care about those players in that colour and now I'm a diehard fan. I think our our funnel is growing and so that extra 300 million is is that new fan that's coming in at the top i think that's so interesting and actually that that maps on very um closely with a profile that we've seen that has come through which is for the longest time essentially since we began trending um sports which was from about 2009 when we looked at women's sports it always tended to skew slightly more liberal a bit more progressive open-minded and whilst that is still absolutely true that is the profile it's actually leveled out of it so it's actually now i suppose get when you get to a billion fans worldwide it by definition has to become slightly more mainstream so if you kind of uh just interesting things so they're for example um more likely to self-describe as traditional or they're slightly less likely to recycle or they're you know there's a few things that previously they would hugely skew for and for me it's it's showing to me that actually what you're getting here is um maybe a slight change in perception of women's sports of it not sort of being on the frontier of being this being kind of new edgy thing where it's like oh we need to necessarily push for progress but it's it's kind of almost achieved that to a certain extent And it is now, they are mainstream sports.

10:02And I'm just wondering again, from your perspective, has that changed any decision-making that's been happening in terms of maybe the brand sponsorships or the partnerships that you engage with now that women's football in particular has become just so mainstream? Yeah, the partnerships we have, you'll have seen, we have Back of Sports, Back of Shorts sponsor, which is Here We Flow. and they're a period product business. I mean, where else would you get a live event where you've got athletes running around every weekend or maybe twice, three times in a week, twice a week and you've got a period care partner who's getting access, who's getting attention, who's getting eyeballs and that partnership is super authentic to us.

10:49It means something to the players to de-stigmatise periods and to be able to say that when some of them who've been playing for England can say, well, I walked out onto the pitch during the final and I started my period that morning and you know what, it's fine. And to openly have that platform and conversation, it means so much to the athletes. It means so much to the fans. The fans in the ground, I call them, some of them, the CEOs of the household, they're making a lot of the purchasing decisions. And so the brands that they see are the brands that they see in their homes. And I think that's a different way of looking at those partnerships they also need to have a real purpose um to the original um view that you had of a more liberal minded fan that's that fan is still there um and they want their football club or their player or the the club that they support to do good things and um that means you can be a period care partner you can be a fertility partner who we just launched as well a fertility plus, where we want the athletes to have at the time when they might have thought about having children or think about their reproductive health, that they are at the peak of their playing careers.

12:03So how do we give them the choice and the options to make sure that they can assess everything about their health care? So it's not about babies, not about freezing eggs. It's about what's your reproductive health feel like, look like to you and what's the best it could be. And so that partnership is really important to make sure that the product on the pitch, the players themselves, never have to worry about anything other than their playing career. And if they want to have the choice to do something different, we can give them that choice. So those partnerships are based off not just what does the fan need to feel like when they see a sponsor?

12:39Does it actually do anything? Is this progressing the game? But also, does the player feel like we're building something sustainable that means that they can have a longer career? Or they can have, we launched on Friday our maternity and return to work type package, where you get a nanny for a year to come on games with you to look after your children. You get access to physical and physiological support and healthcare. So we have a pelvic floor specialist. We have a menstruation specialist. We now have a fertility specialist. So all of that side of an athlete, which you don't really have to talk about ever, is now part of what we do because we can't just think about the fan.

13:26We have to think about the product that the fan is engaging with and how do both of those sustain each other. Yeah, the announcement on Friday I thought was so impressive. and what I think is actually really interesting now, the WSL, again, so fandom of the WSL has almost tripled in the last three to four years and I think we're now at, so 7 million fans, so over 10 % of the population self-described as a fan of that competition. And it's such a, I think, it's now getting into a position where it's actually kind of a role model for other institutions and industries and I thought it was really inspirational actually to see like this is what is possible in terms of what a business and employer can do for their employees and for female employees.

14:10So I have to say I like that. One of the things I thought was so interesting about the Fertility Plus, and I'm curious about how some of these partnerships come to bear. So, for example, compared to the average WSL fan, they're 70 % more likely to be interested in having children in the future. Now, some of that's kind of regional in that London generally will have that kind of profile and things like that. but um how did that fertility plus partnership come to about like what was the journey from going for such like kind of an interesting sports partnership which like you say is quite quite groundbreaking really it really helps having carly telford in any um and not just carly but having players within the club on the business side is really important i can sit there and i can look at you know this is the product market fit and this is where i think we're heading but no one really knows what it's like other than a player and what it feels like the pace of change the sacrifices you're making the thoughts that are going through your head when you're going to play that game and the decisions you're having to to make or delay and Carly was in the US and she saw some of this happening over there and that these conversations were happening and so she made it her personal mission to figure out how do we do this how do we not increase our operating costs But how do we make sure that we build something that is commercially smart, that gets the players what they need, but the club isn't holding back or creating a barrier to entry for other clubs to be able to do the same thing?

15:43So the value and kind relationship we have with Fertility Plus is amazing. It's like I said, it's not just about egg freezing. And I really want to make sure that people hear that it's about choice. and if we can give someone choice and access to healthcare and access to medical insight, education, that's a great place to be. And I think a lot of clubs hopefully will look at that and go, oh, actually, that's a model we can follow rather than that's a model that's holding us back. And I think it's a taboo in the dressing room to be able to talk about that. It's a taboo in any business, right, to say, oh, I'd just like to announce that I might be thinking of having kids, right?

16:20You're actively out loud saying, well, maybe I'm going to pause my career for a bit. And you don't want to have to do that. You want to be able to look at the options, look at your medical profile and make that as an informed decision. So the secret weapon is Carly. The fact that Carly won't stop as well is brilliant. And the fact that the players have been open enough to be able to give us feedback on some of the things we're talking about. and say, actually, that is something we would be interested in. We're not going to, and we don't need to know the details. It's between the doctor and the player.

16:57But if that's something that is on their mind and we can do something about it with the badge that we have and the access that we have, and it helps other women talk about this as a, not even women, actually, it's like both sides of that family, whether or not it's a man and a woman or it's not a man and a woman, it doesn't really matter. It's the fact that you are talking about, can I have a family? And we want to destigmatise that.

17:24David Cushnan:And with the new player maternity policy, the framework in general, the package that you announced recently, give us an insight into, from a timeframe point of view, how long has that taken to put together, as you say, in dialogue with players, but also, I guests thinking about from a fan point of view from a you know where there might be opportunities with some of your other brand partners what has the what has the collective project looked like um it's sort of since since i got here really so about um not that it's taken three years but it's taken us a while to make sure that we don't leave anyone behind and that we don't do something quickly because we think that we have to go out there and say something it's does this really work for everyone have we thought it through how will it work if you're on loan how will it work if you want to come back like what does that mean how do we support you when you when you're back you need a different sort of physical support you need different training you need different nutrition like that all has to be thought about not just in a policy document but with our performance team and then you have to make sure you have the infrastructure around it so you can't just go out and say we're going to well you can say we're going to do this but in order to be able to switch it on I think that's taken us uh maybe a year and a bit once we figured out what it should be and that's only because we wanted to make sure we had the ecosystem around to support the things we wanted to do just wanted to go back to something you said earlier as you were talking about the two of the many segments, but the two big bucket segments of your fan base.

19:13David Cushnan:And this idea, which is fascinating of fans not only cottoning on to particular players and maybe following their careers a bit more, but you talked about a bit more of maybe a transient fan base that, you know, whether that's London or as you say, Arsenal one week, Chelsea the next week. what does that change how does that impact your your marketing playbook and the way that you talk to fans and communicate with fans in the knowledge that it sounds like what you're saying is that again without making constant comparisons to the men's game we're talking about something that is is is and probably will remain less tribal yeah um you have to you have to think about it without the football sometimes and you have to say on saturday we're doing this this is the kickoff time right who's going to come to that kickoff time so if it's a midday uh and there's an away fan that is not in the same geo are we really going to get enough um away fans coming for that game at that time in the morning, especially when a big segment of the audience is families.

20:25And those kids have got parties or those families have got their own sports clubs. So you have to really think about who can make this event rather than there's a football game on and there's a tribal thing happening and there's a habit. And so the lead time is really valuable. So the further along we can have that kickoff time that we can work through. Fortunately, we can find that audience online. We can find them in our CRM base. We can find them where they have lookalike audiences that have been to similar games. So we need a longer lead time, but then we also need to curate a product around that kickoff time.

21:04So if it's later in the evening, what type of food are we doing if it's if it's earlier what type of food are we are we um putting on um do we really want to do lots of face paints at champions league probably not i don't think there's much uh face painting going on at 8 p.m i don't know i haven't seen any um uh but there are way more cocktails happening at 8 p.m uh there are way more um hospitality opportunities at 8 p.m so the product is different based on the kickoff time and based on the wind sales window you have we launched our bottomless brunch um i think two seasons ago and it's one of our most successful products you basically can eat and drink as much as you like there's a dj in there no one's going to be upset if you leave your seat halfway through uh and uh top up your prosecco which is amazing um and we've seen a shift in that audience from being groups of girls essentially to now being a lot of groups of guys coming in.

22:04We've had a couple of stag do groups coming in, very sedate stag do's, but they are stag do's. And this product is, well, I was going out on King's Road to have drinks and brunch or food anyway, but wow, there's a women's football club there and they're actually really, really good. And there's some internationals in that squad and I'm going to watch an amazing game, I'm going to drink in my seat and I'm going to have a great time. So that great time has to be marketed as well as the amazing football on the pitch. And you've got to find the door in so that someone comes in, they sees that this is actually a really good evening or a good day.

22:41And now I'm going to tell my mates that that was fantastic. We've got to go again. and the the leaving and the uh coming into the ground is a lot less stressful uh it's a lot less adversarial and it feels like there's more community you you're bringing someone with you you're building community which will build the fandom and then i really want some tribalism i still want that i don't want that to go away but i'm also completely open to the fact that this isn't this isn't maybe how it will have to be we don't have to copy another template it's

23:15David Cushnan:interesting because my without speaking for broadcasters for example my my suspicion would be that broadcasters are really looking for a bit of tribalism and that kind of you know atmosphere um to sort of permeate through the the screen to to their viewers so there is an element probably of it's it's education it's habit building and it's maybe encouraging broadcasters as well your broadcast partners the league's broadcast partners that there maybe is a different way and it again it's not just going to be a carbon copy of what they might see in in other leagues that they broadcast yeah i think if uh because we we are still working on the product market fit it is early and we were waiting we won everything immediately me too um we're just not there yet and there's people tasting and figuring out is this for them and which bit is for them and depending on which game they come to they'll get a very different experience so you have to find a way to get them to say oh this is for me on the game i went to it was for me rather than the game i went to it wasn't for me so for a broadcaster i would think about that this is closer to a tournament than it is and it's becoming more league but we're bouncing between depending on the fixture depending on the time of day depending on the fan interest so trying to create moments I think is really important for some of the less tribal teams and making sure that all of us support through the ecosystem that everybody gets a chance to have a rivalry and have a story to tell you don't want to watch something where you know what the score is going to be and I think we're beyond that now actually especially this season so I feel like the product on the pitch and the fan is maturing and maybe the broadcasters need to think about it differently rather than thinking that we should all be what the other sports products are.

25:20Yeah I'm actually super interested in what you think will happen next year in that, Joe, with the Women's World Cup being the central event. So just a few numbers on this. By our estimations, we believe it's going to be the biggest women's-only sporting event of all time. We think about 1.8 billion people globally will tune in for at least one game and will engage in many, many other ways as well. And an interesting thing that we did, so we did the comparison of a year out from the Women's World Cup, a year out from the Men's World Cup back in 2025. ahead of the 2026 competition, we looked at what we call sponsorship attribution, which is how good are you at identifying a sponsor whilst also avoiding selecting an incorrect sponsor when we say who sponsors this event.

26:05And what's very interesting is that viewers of the Women's World Cup are better at that. So they have a better sponsorship attribution score. So there's a cut through. So it's a very positive story for sponsors of women's football because they have this very successful attribution. And one of the interesting trends that we've seen is we asked another question, which was how patriotic do you feel when you watch your women's national team play? And the more patriotic you feel, the better your sponsorship attribution score. So it's a really consistent predictor. And what I'm really interested in next year, kind of leaning into some of the themes that you guys were discussing, is this a moment where women's football will really lean into the theme of patriotism?

26:46And it's kind of got, you know, men's football has done it for years and years and years, and it leans into a bit of that kind of tribalism thing that we were talking about with club football. And so from a Chelsea perspective, I'm just so interested, what does the Women's World Cup mean for you? Is there, you know, you have many players who will be competing. What does it mean for you as a club or as an organisation, as a business, will you be doing leading up to and around that event? This is where we build fandom. This is where we tell our story. tell our story on a world stage. I see it that we Chelsea women can win the World Cup, you know, in that sort of way.

27:29Like, how do we say, oh, she's a Chelsea player. She's a Chelsea player. And yeah, just watch the Women's World Cup because Chelsea will win it. And I think that's such, obviously, it's very arrogant and a big statement. But the point is we need to tell the stories and every other club should be thinking the same if they have international athletes. How does it feel like for your team or your club to win the World Cup. And that means tell the story before, during, after and make sure that you can access that player. So if that player is on your squad, like what are you doing about that right now?

28:03How are you sharing their training or their international break? Like what are they doing within that? How do you make sure that you can have watch alongs? Like what is it that you need to do to feel closer to your club and the World Cup at the same time? And then what happens when they come back? Like, how do you make sure that you bring as many players, as many fans who have followed those players to your ground? So it's really important. It's a big, big moment where all the attention will be on the world's best players. And I'd like a lot of them to be seen as Chelsea women's players or WSL players, right?

28:37Because that will bring the same sort of interest to the league. So, yeah, that's essentially how we're seeing it. We want to win the World Cup. I love that. I think that's really... It's bold, isn't it? It's bold. Yeah, yeah. With my mic on the whole time. When you talk about those moments, though, if it's a player from Chelsea holding the World Cup, it's just such an iconic image. And I actually really agree with you on the WSL angle. I think one of the interesting challenges for the WSL, so we ask about kind of what teams do you sponsor, what leagues do you follow? So when you look at the men's competition, so if you look at the English Premier League, the number of people who self-identify as a fan of the EPL globally is about double that of the most popular club.

29:19So in the men's game, it's Manchester United. So you get about twice as many fans. Interestingly, there are clubs in the WSL with more fans than the WSL. So Chelsea has about three million more fans than the WSL has. And I think the World Cup is that opportunity to kind of bring women's football for that size of audience to see, to be like here's another competition where you're going to get the same kind of product and i think that i think that's a really kind of interesting and inspiring thing just for you as in kind of in terms of that and again i want to be careful to say the club is bigger than the competition because i think that's probably a bit oversimplified really but do you kind of are you aware of that is that is that something that influences decisions in that chelsea is kind of it does really lead the way in terms of compared to the competition in terms of the role model you are or the kind of decisions that you make and does that affect any of your decision making at all?

30:22Yeah it does I feel really responsible and accountable for the decisions I make and the team makes we don't want to set the wrong direction and standard that creates a pathway for other clubs to say, well, they've done it. So now it's okay. We can do that same thing. So I have to be really thoughtful around when are we doing something that will lift the game and other teams and players? And when is it going to hold another club back? Because the model we used is just something that they just can't get access to. We launched with Rimmel, a makeup brand the other week, and it was brilliant, just perfect.

31:09It was match perfection. Makeup foundation, which worked really well with the players, with the idea. We had Katie McCabe, Lauren James, we had Lucy Bronze. And that doesn't mean now makeup's sewn up. It means all the other makeup brands should be looking at different clubs and saying, oh, what do we do over here? So anytime we enter a category or we enter into a partnership, I do think, are we doing something that is a brand new line of revenue for a club, whether it's a club that's attached to a men's club or if it's a standalone club? Is this a whole new category that we've unlocked where you can get reach, frequency and engagement for a brand and a fan?

31:53And then with the fertility side, you know, that's value in kind. So it's OK, this is a model that I think others could follow where Fertility Plus is getting reach and interest and talking openly about how they support women's health. But we're not seeing any of that as a club, the player is. And so it's more of a partnership that connects that we will get out of the way, but we have created a pathway for. So, yeah, I do feel very responsible and I don't wear it lightly. so we do make sure that we we have that thought we are still very competitive you know we want to win want to win everything but we can't win alone right you need you need an other you need an adversary you need a someone to play against and we want to make sure everybody gets that and we have players that move around we have staff that move around this is a whole industry we're building and so yeah we do have to be thoughtful about it where are the headwinds at the moment Aki as you

32:51David Cushnan:see them in women's football, you'll be aware of the commentary around attendances in the WSL in particular in recent times. You will probably be familiar with some sceptics who question the, well, question the whole thing, question the business model, the sustainability of the business model. What are you seeing and what's your message to those who are more sceptical? I think sometimes we can be compared to very mature industries and get a false signal of success or failure. I think it's a bit lazy when that happens. And I just think, wow, you're about to miss out. I see that growth isn't linear, especially at this stage.