Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

I'm Sam Fenwick.

And in this episode of our series on women, sport and business, we're all about the merch.

We've just seen like this increase everywhere in the merchandise, in the availability.

I've played since I was five years old.

And when I was five years old, it was not anything like it is today.

And like the amount of little kids here wearing England shirts

and getting to see their heroes play,

I'd have given anything for that when I was there.

Those families outside Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United, were at the first game of the women's euros.

The cues for merch got us thinking about how important replica tops and kits actually are for women's sport in terms of fandom, participation, and of course, money.

Start paying attention the next time you go to a sport retailer,

look at the marketing materials, the promotions, the types of images on their websites.

More often than not, you'll probably see boys actively playing sports

and enjoying sports with little girls hanging down on the sidelines with their friends,

if they're even there.

We're going to explore what's available and whether half the population is being properly

catered for in terms of sports gear.

Let's start with some numbers.

Pre-pandemic, the women's sportswear market was valued at just under

$27 billion. According to data from Euro Market International, that's compared with more than

$80 billion for the total sportswear market. So what's actually available? Let's have more of a rummage

...