18 September 2023 , 11:00
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"We want to make this league the first billion-pound women's league in the world."
Ambitious words from Dawn Airey, the chair of the Women’s Super League board, but they aren’t spoken lightly. On a sweltering September morning in west London, Airey and Baroness Sue Campbell the FA's Director of Women's Football are discussing their plans for the top of the English pyramid.
With women's football moving at such a rapid pace, it’s almost hard to keep track of what comes next. Each year brings greater interest, more spending on transfers, and more fans coming through the door. And the WSL finds itself at a crossroads as we head into the new season.
The existing television deal comes to an end, with the pair stating the new broadcast rights are set to be put on the market before 2024. The FA also want this to be the last campaign before what they call “NewCo” will take over the day-to-day running of the competition.
Both the Championship and the WSL are currently managed by the FA. But a new restructure, handing over power to a new body, will improve commercial opportunities for the top of the English women’s game. It is seen as essential at a time when revenues, attendance and TV coverage are also increasing rapidly.
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“The FA is a regulator,” explains Airey. “And we appreciate that a regulator running a commercial league is an unusual thing. So the FA committed some time ago to the leagues being handed over to the clubs to run. NewCo is the name that we give to the new governing structure around the clubs that are going to run these leagues.
Baroness Sue Campbell, the FA's Director of Women's Football (Mark Atkins/ Getty Images)“We've been working particularly closely for around eight months, with some select CEOs of the WSL and Championship, that represent both leagues, to get the right structures in place. It’s complicated. But we are making good progress, because this has to be resolved before we go into the next season, 2024-25.”
The Lionesses' success first at Euro 2022, then at this summer’s World Cup, has supercharged England’s appetite for domestic women’s football. On the pitch, the game looks entirely transformed from when the league was first formed over a decade ago in 2012.
WSL league chair Dawn Airey (centre) has big plans for the competitionThe next step is now maximising its commercial potential, to achieve the lofty target set out by Airey. Baroness Campbell agrees: "(the WSL) we have is now without question the leading league in the world in terms of the attention it's getting.
"Last year, it was the most followed women's league in the world with 2 million followers. We had a massive increase in attendance, in both Super League and Championship, with Super League up about 170 per cent, we want to see that go up again."
Clearly, this would be helped by teams playing in their main stadiums as often as possible. The opening day of 2023-24 does see Villa Park host Aston Villa's clash with Manchester United, while Chelsea and Arsenal are back at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates respectively for their games with Spurs and Liverpool.
But plenty of fixtures this season will also be held in the more modest surroundings of Leigh Sports Village and Borehamwood. These venues often have a lively atmosphere when packed, but has the league outgrown them?
A flashpoint came last season at Chelsea's Kingsmeadow in January when the Blues' fixture against Liverpool kicked off but only lasted five minutes before being abandoned on a clearly frozen pitch. Could it be time for a team to play all 11 home fixtures in their main stadium?
"The challenge with that is also is if we're not getting enough people in those main stadiums," explains Campbell. "Then the broadcasters will say it doesn't create the atmosphere.
Chelsea's game against Liverpool is abandoned last season (Pedro Soares/SPP/REX/Shutterstock)"We've still got to drag a lot more people into those main stadia. But Arsenal are showing the way, they're filling that stadium and doing a great job, so it's doable. I think that's the message.
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"We've looked at all the stadia with the teams and tried to make sure we've got in place, contingencies should we need them. That (the abandonment at Kingsmeadow) was a very unfortunate thing. And it comes back to what I said, we've got to really work hard on getting the right facilities, the right playing surfaces, the right facilities for our players."
A lucrative new television contract and expanded commercial partners could see the WSL become unrecognisable five years down the line. But how will this help the entire women’s pyramid, rather than just a dozen or so clubs at the top?
Beth Mead of Arsenal applauds the fans during their win over Spurs in front of a WSL record crowd (Getty Images - 2022 The FA)One thing the league chiefs don’t want to see is simply Premier League 2.0, with a huge disparity between the clubs fighting for the top titles and those at the bottom of the pyramid fighting just to exist.
“We should get away from talking about a league, this is two leagues in our structure,” explains Campbell. “Two leagues that will benefit from any (extra) income coming in.
“That's one of the big discussions we're having, what percentage of that income is guaranteed into the Championship so that it thrives and grows? We want to sort that out now, we don't want arguments ten years down the line.
“One of the big challenges for us as we move forward is, how do we make sure that the gaps between WSL, the Championship and the (third tier) National League don't just get bigger?
"Because the WSL is moving so fast at the top, what can we do? We have to make sure we’re keeping that as tight as possible. We're acutely aware of the lessons from the Premier League and EFL. There is a current split."
It’s a nice challenge to have, but a challenge nonetheless.