Domestic women’s sport attracted a record British broadcast audience of nearly 33m in 2021, says a new report.
The Hundred cricket tournament and the FA Women’s Super League were the two biggest drivers, bringing in a combined 11m new viewers to women’s sport.
Futures Sport, working with the Women’s Sport Trust, said 5.9m new viewers to the WSL had not watched women’s sport in 2021 prior to the current season.
Of The Hundred’s 4.9m viewers, 3.5m went on to watch other women’s sport.
Researchers say The Hundred attracted most people’s interest with cricket achieving 41% of total viewing hours, compared to 39% for football, although the WSL season is only at its midway point.
The report claims 25% of viewers who watched England women’s cricket or the Women’s Hundred last year did not watch any men’s cricket on TV in 2021.
In addition, 6.2m people watched live WSL broadcast matches in 2021 without watching a Premier League game on TV, while 1.5m watched live W Series coverage without watching live Formula 1.
Despite the current trend of declining TV viewing hours, women’s sport has grown across both free-to-air and pay-TV channels, with the former bringing in 19m new viewers to women’s sport.
However, the report highlighted how women’s sport “still needs to address building greater habit and repeat viewership”, an area in which it lags behind men’s sport.
It noted that 45% of the women’s Hundred audience watched the competition on television on more than one occasion, while 35% have done the same during the 2021-22 WSL season so far.
While the WSL figure is an increase on the 2020-21 figure (31%), the men’s Hundred attracted 55% repeat viewers, with 87% and 57% for the Premier League and Premiership rugby respectively last season.
| Year | Viewers (m) |
| 2012 | 20.1 |
| 2013 | 21.8 |
| 2014 | 28.0 |
| 2015 | 22.6 |
| 2016 | 25.2 |
| 2017 | 25.1 |
| 2018 | 27.3 |
| 2019 | 32.8 |
| 2020 | 26.9 |
| 2021 | 32.9 |
‘The Hundred and WSL the perfect gateway’
Researchers also emphasised the interest in individual athletes, with 8m UK Google searches for Britain’s Emma Raducanu compared to just 250 in May, prior to her run to the fourth round at Wimbledon and US Open triumph.
Major mixed events, such as Wimbledon and the Paralympic Games, both had the highest percentage of female viewers from major events with 57%, closely followed by the Olympic Games with 52%.
Tammy Parlour, chief executive and co-founder of the Women’s Sport Trust, said: “The importance of free-to-air, alongside pay-TV coverage, in bringing new audiences to women’s sport should not be underestimated.
“Domestic competitions such as The Hundred and the Women’s Super League are the perfect gateway to viewing more women’s sport and I look forward to seeing the impact other major international events this year will have on future viewing figures.
“We know how important these major events are in growing viewership figures but we want this growth to be sustainable, driving greater habit amongst audiences, to ensure women’s sport continues to be visible, viable and unstoppable.”
