Matildas merchandise already outsells the Socceroos’ by a factor of two to one. But in the big-money world of major sport, scoring goals doesn’t always move the dial.
Caitlin Foord’s first kick of a soccer ball was in 2004 when, as a nine-year-old, she started to play with the boys in the school playground. She’d never watched a match, but she had natural ability, having played touch footy and competed in athletics. In her first game, she scored six goals and, with the help of sister Jamie, she convinced their mum, Simone, to let her do one more sport. “All the boys’ parents were saying how good I was,” she says. “That’s kind of where my journey started.
Crowds for the A-League Women have more than doubled in the first 10 rounds of this year’s competition. Club memberships have spiked and the number of kids registering for their free passes to games has tripled. Stars such as Foord and Hayley Raso are signing lucrative sponsorship deals and younger players such as Clare Hunt and Charli Grant are joining some of the world’s biggest clubs in Europe.
Former professional golfer Adam Wilcox typifies how money is moving into women’s soccer. His company, Major Events Live, creates events featuring sports stars and for 25 years his usual fodder has been men: ex-NRL players like Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith, and retired surfer Mick Fanning. Last August, Wilcox watched the Matildas’ emotion-charged penalty shootout against France.“I hadn’t heard of Mackenzie before,” he says. “But the way she performed on that night, you couldn’t not watch.
Of the 23 players that make up the Matildas squad, 19 play in tier-one competitions across the US and Europe. The majority of Socceroos squad members play in lower-tier European football leagues. Goalkeeper Joe Gauci is the only player from the men’s team competing in the English Premier League – he signed with Aston Villa in early February – and 17-year-old prodigy Nestory Irankunda will join German club Bayern Munich in 2024.
National team salaries, prize money and funding from sponsors allow Grant to play soccer full-time. She has just signed with English club Tottenham Hotspur, a move that was under way before the World Cup, and has seen firsthand what playing on a world stage has done for her friends. “Look at Clare Hunt and Kyra Cooney-Cross . They are two of the best clubs in the world,” she says. “The World Cup would have helped to push those players into those positions.
These days, sponsorship dollars are flooding in. The Matildas are backed by major Australian businesses including CommBank, Qantas and Rebel. Cadbury, which helped fund a young Foord selling its chocolates, is a sponsor too. Along with sponsorship, sports bodies make money from ticketing, merchandise and broadcast partners. The money is used for infrastructure, support staff and to pay athletes. But none of it comes without a fan base.
The only reason she never quit, she says, was because of her parents. Her American mother, who moved from the US to live in the outback with her Indigenous Australian father, refused to let her give up. “I’ve had that push in me from a really young age,” she says. As years went by, Williams and her teammates became frustrated about being paid minimum wage, deprived of even the most basic requirements to play – boots, for example.
“The tournament was a moment in history and may never see such a meteoric rise again, but the growth can definitely now continue,” Gallop says. “Commercial interest . . . is going to come knocking so the administrators will need to shape the program in a way that maximises the opportunity. Quality opposition, good venue choices and managing the workload of the overseas stars like Sam Kerr will be important.”As will the Matildas’ performance.
Albanese also used the August announcement to reform Australia’s anti-siphoning list, which determines the significant sports and cultural events that should be made available to the public. In November, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland revealed plans toSome think that could do more harm than good. Rebecca McCloy, Foxtel Group’s executive director of commercial sport, says any limitations on rights to televise the sport could reduce revenues and hit investment.
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