Women’s pro sport in Canada ‘ripe for investment’ but investors need patience – and happy fans
In a country so in love with ice hockey, why has women’s football never been able to carry the excitement of big events like the Olympics and form a full-time league?
For Canada’s top women hockey players, this remains a sore point, a confusing and never quite answered question.
Brianne Jenner, a core member of the Canada national team for more than a decade, has been trying to answer that question for years.
“It’s hugely frustrating that more fans won’t see the best of years [long-time Team Canada captain] Marie-Philip Poulin,” Jenner told CBC Sports.
“It’s frustrating for our generation that outside of the top 50 players who play on their respective national teams in North America, players between the ages of 50 and 200 have to get 9-to-5 jobs and never have the opportunity to fulfill their potential as a professional player .”
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The Premier Hockey Federation, the only existing women’s professional league, has two of its six franchises in Canada. But since the Canadian Women’s Hockey League closed in 2018, Canada hasn’t had a national league.
More than two decades after women’s hockey arrived with a bang at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Canada’s best still seek appeal and widespread relevance.
change of narrative
Jenner says there is a “dynamic” in women’s sports that will change that narrative.
“The public is beginning to realize some things that stakeholders have known for some time… it’s a fun sport, [and] There’s money to be made there.”
A new report published this week by Canadian Women & Sport entitled It’s time supports Jenner’s claim.
BCG paints a rosy picture of the opportunity, estimating the total size of Canada’s women’s sports market at $150-200 million. Das Gupta says nearly half of that estimate is related to Olympic athlete earnings. The remainder comes largely from one-off events held in Canada, such as the LPGA’s Canadian Open.
“We had to make estimates, we had to use data that wasn’t readily available, and that was a challenge,” says DasGupta. “With so little professional women’s sport available to us as fans in Canada, we struggled to really find a lot of sentiment data points. It’s difficult to have an opinion on something you can’t see or feel.”
Global boom
The report instead relies heavily on data from a global market where women’s sport is booming. In the United States, the WNBA (which is heavily subsidized by the NBA) continues to attract new fans and eager investors. So does the National Women’s Soccer League. The recent NCAA women’s basketball tournament attracted record interest.
In the UK and India, domestic football and cricket leagues have developed greatly. Almost all of these leagues are affiliated with existing entities and have benefited from these partnerships.
In Canada, previous domestic leagues have had to fend for themselves with the expectation of near-instant success, a major reason they have failed.
This new report forecasts a bright future for these ventures, acknowledges many areas that experts say have severely hampered success in the past, and offers some advice for the future.
According to DasGupta, Canadian leagues need to seek patient investors — those who recognize the industry’s infancy and avoid promises of immediate financial success.
“I think the business model has to…recognize that we’re building the game, creating interest, building engagement,” she says. “We compare it very much to a venture capital investment. The starting price is actually pretty low right now. It will take time to really develop the business and some of these new revenue streams. But in the end we think the reviews are very, very positive.”
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At the same time, those who have been involved with or have observed past leagues emphasize that emerging leagues don’t always have long to prove their viability. It takes quick work to convert “growing interest” and “momentum” into fans who actually buy tickets and come to the games. Even the noblest and most patient investors want to see early signs of growth.
“Women’s hockey isn’t a charity. It’s a professional business run like a business,” Brenda Andruss, the former commissioner of the CWPL, recently told CBC Sports. “To be run like a business, you need the fans to come to the game to pay the dollars, you need the sponsors to come, you need broadcast and streaming rights.”
“You need people in the office who aren’t former coaches and players and have nothing to do with the product on the field,” adds Cary Kaplan, whose company Cosmos Sports has advised leagues and teams across North America.
“You have to focus on community relations, marketing, public relations, ticket sales, public relations and social media. And women’s hockey didn’t do that for some reason.”
Put fans first
The report also encourages potential investors to pay more attention to building fan engagement, something that Kaplan says women’s sport in Canada has often ignored. He says leagues need to focus more on building individual player profiles and focus on stats and achievements like most men’s sports do.
According to Brianne Jenner, leagues must adopt this model if the predicted potential of the Canadian sports market is ever to be realized.
“We’re rightly changing the way we talk about female athletes away from just being role models,” says Jenner. “Naturally [that]is a super important thing, but we’re also talking about female athletes now because of their ability, their speed.
“Male athletes have always had that kind of coverage, but female athletes haven’t… and that’s the content that fans want to hear about.”
Jenner says all the indicators show women’s sports can thrive in Canada, it’s the “mature investments” that reports like this one say.
“We don’t see ourselves as a charity, nor do we fit into that category anymore.”