Barclays’ £10m sponsorship of Women’s Super League: A large step in the right direction

Our descendants may look at our reaction to Wednesday’s announcement with fond nostalgia, like we do with stories of our forebears heading to the wealthy relative’s house and gathering around the flickering black-and-white television and watch the first-ever live match (Arsenal vs Arsenal Reserves in 1937, fact fans).

Because as monumental as the £10m sponsorship of the Women’s Super League seems to today’s fans and players, it will hopefully be looked back on as but one step in the journey towards parity with the men’s game.

The men’s Premier League is generally seen as a bloated behemouth benefiting from billions of pounds in sponsorship and TV revenue, but in its early days the sponsorship figures involved were not that far from the sums that Barclays are paying to be title sponsors of the women’s top flight.

Halcyon days

Carling, the first sponsors of the Premier League, paid £12m for the privilege of putting their name to the competition. Sure, you could buy a lot more with 12 million quid in the halcyon days of 1993 (7.84m pints of Carling, for one), but the amount was spread over 22 clubs – double the number in today’s Women’s Super League – and was paid out over three years, as is yesterday’s Barclays deal.

The price had risen to £36m for Carling in their final three-year deal and by the time Barclays came on board in 2001 (under the name of Barclaycard) it cost £48m spread across three years to sponsor the league.

And 12 years later, Barclays’ final deal as title sponsor of the Premier League was worth £40m per year.

Expanding bubble

Few would predict that the Women’s Super League may grow as much as to command a £40m-per-year sponsorship deal in the space of 20 years, but observers in 1993 were no doubt sceptical over whether football’s bubble would expand to the vast size it has today.

And even if the destination on this journey for the Women’s Super League may not be global television deals and nine-figure transfer fees for players, £10m, let’s not forget, is a very good start – an obvious improvement from the previous zero – and also includes half a million pounds worth of prize money. The aim is to help the Football Association and clubs “transform the women’s game”, as well as “celebrate the league’s players and clubs and change perceptions”. You know which perceptions they mean.

But we have seen from football, to cycling, to athletics that if money is spent wisely, then standards improve. And if standards improve, audiences swell. And if audiences swell, sponsors become more interested. And so it goes.

Gulf in class

This will not transform women’s football overnight. There is the small matter of the Barclays money instantly creating a wealth gulf between the Women’s Super League and the second-tier Championship, of which Manchester United are the only full-time outfit. And the day before Wednesday’s announcement, Yeovil Town Ladies, who are bottom of the Super League, expressed fears that they may have to revert to a part-time side due to financial difficulties.

But it is a large step in the right direction. The penny has finally dropped for sponsors that women’s sport – and specifically women’s football – is marketable. May this be seen in the future as a quaint revelation.