Inside WSL’s game-changing TV deal
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2021
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Host Mark Chapman and The Athletic's Matt Slater discuss the landmark multi-million pound deal between the English Football Association and UK broadcasters to screen matches in the Women’s Super League.
Special guests for the roundtable discussion are Kelly Simmons, Director of The Women’s Professional Game at the English Football Association & Bex Smith, Strategic Consultant at Copa 90 & CEO of Crux Sports a company that supports players through their careers. She is a former New Zealand international, who has captained her country at two World Cups and two Olympics. She later worked for Fifa, managing the Women's World Cups and hosts of The Players podcast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:13.7 | Hello, I'm Mark Chapman. |
| 0:14.9 | Welcome to the Business of Sport podcast on The Athletic, |
| 0:17.5 | alongside as ever from The Athletic Football News reporter Matt Slater. |
| 0:21.3 | And coming up today, we're going to discuss the landmark multi-million pound deal |
| 0:24.5 | between the English Football Association and UK broadcasters to screen matches in the |
| 0:30.1 | women's super league. This is the business of sport from the Athletic. |
| 0:34.5 | So the podcast this week is all about the new UK television deal for the women's Super League. |
| 0:39.5 | It's worth £7 million per year over three seasons. |
| 0:42.5 | It will see the league generate more revenue than any other women's domestic league in the world. |
| 0:48.7 | And before we bring our guests in, Matt, just take us briefly through the deal and the numbers. |
| 0:53.8 | Yeah, well, as you've |
| 0:54.5 | described, the numbers are very, very, very impressive. It's been described as a landmark deal, |
| 0:58.5 | and I think that's fair. Seven million a year, as you say, three-year deal starts next season. |
| 1:03.9 | It's with Sky and BBC. Sky have committed to show that 44 games a season, at least 35 of those on their main football channels. |
| 1:14.9 | The BBC will show 22 games, of which at least 18 will be on BBC 1 or BBC 2. |
| 1:21.1 | The rest of the games will be on the FA player. |
| 1:24.7 | So the whole season will be available for fans. |
| 1:30.2 | As you mentioned, they're saying it's going to be the most watched women's sports league in the world. So it's going to beat the women's |
| 1:34.6 | NBA. It's going to be more watched than the US women's national women's. |
| 1:42.1 | Hey, Kitty, time to eat your profits. |
| 1:45.4 | Good kitty, look how fat you've gotten. |
... |
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