Fan apathy: Is it in women’s football only?
Equity Bank women's basketball team point guard, Samba Mjomba trains In Kitengela on June 7, 2020.
What you need to know:
- I recall attending an international volleyball women’s game between Kenya and Cameroon at Kasarani Indoor Arena which was full to the rafters. I have also seen fans, men and women alike, jostling for vantage points at City Park during a women’s hockey league match.
In response to last week’s column in which we discussed the issue of fan attendance in elite women’s games using the Columbian 2018/2019 strategy as the model, my friend, neighbour and former colleague Warothe Kiiru wrote back with a thought-provoking question.
“I have been at the Nyayo and women’s basketball games are quite popular. Players like Samba Mjomba, Sarah Chan and Mercy Wanyama are famous. Kenya Ports Authority and Equity Hawks teams have a big following across genders. In hockey, Telkom women is a success story, and the women’s league has as much, if not more fans than the men’s. So is the problem football specific, locally and globally?” He asked.
Indeed, I relied on football statistics. Help me here dear readers before I concede that spectator apathy in the women’s game is indeed football specific. The premise of my argument last week was that the low demand for women’s game has all to do with the culture codes we’ve adopted as humans, and nothing to do with quality.
I recall attending an international volleyball women’s game between Kenya and Cameroon at Kasarani Indoor Arena which was full to the rafters. I have also seen fans, men and women alike, jostling for vantage points at City Park during a women’s hockey league match.
Disgraced former Fifa head Sepp Blatter once drew a correlation between some women’s sports disciplines and the attires involved, but that is story for another day.
I am still conflicted as to whether the problem is football specific. I came across a valuable academic paper authored in 2020 titled: “The determinants of stadium attendance in elite women’s football: Evidence from the Uefa Women’s Champions League”.
The authors investigated determinants of match attendance of the tournament using regression models deployed on 554 Uefa league games played between 2009/10 and 2017/18. They found that spectators’ interest is positively associated with five factors: Stage of the competition, uncertainty of match outcome, competitive intensity, away club’s reputation and weather conditions.
“Football governing bodies should put in place initiatives to ensure match outcome uncertainty is maintained, as this represents a key determinant to maximise stadium attendance.
Recommendations include incentivising investment into the elite women’s game and designing sport policies to encourage participation at grassroots levels,” the paper read in part.
Well, that’s not so hard to do, is it? In England, football administrators have begun implementing the recommendations, although it will take a few years before we can measure results. In England’s Women’s Super League, Chelsea and Manchester City enjoy the biggest crowds, averaging 1,864 and 1,409 respectively before the pandemic.
In France, multiple champions Lyon and Paris St-Germain are the best-supported team with an average of 1,428 fans pre-pandemic. In Germany, two-time Champions League winners Wolfsburg topped with 1,689 fans on average in 2019.
These numbers fly in the face of claims that “no-one cares about women’s football”. I welcome more views on whether fan apathy is unique to football, but only from fans who have watched the women’s game this year when the league resumes.
