Soccer Women in France No Longer on Sidelines

(Bloomberg) -- Women are slowly starting to match up to men in France. In soccer, that is.

In France, women’s soccer has never drawn the interest, media attention or the money that the men’s team has. That’s changing as the country hosts the Women’s World Cup, with the games raking in ticket sales, viewers, coverage and, more importantly for female French players, sponsorship funds.

On Friday, chemicals company Arkema SA announced a three-year contract for the naming rights with the top women’s professional league for the season starting August. The sponsorship deal is worth 1 million euros ($1.13 million) a year, according to Agence France-Presse.

“The naming contract is a first for the Women’s D1 and is excellent news for the development of women’s soccer, which is going through an important phase, as we can see, thanks to the popular success of the Women’s World Cup,” Noel Le Graet, the French Football Federation’s president, said in a statement.

Although a fraction of the 15 million-euro Uber Eats will pay to name the men’s League 1 this coming season, the sign of funds trickling in bodes well for the business of women’s soccer in France. The Women’s World Cup -- which started on June 7, with the final match slated for July 7 in Lyon -- has already surpassed expectations, with TF1, France’s most-watched TV station, increasing ad prices twice in a week for the French team’s matches. According to the world soccer body FIFA, the global audience for the tournament could reach 1 billion viewers from 750 million in the last World Cup in 2015.

Soccer in France -- like elsewhere in the world -- is still largely a men’s sport, with the women’s tournaments seen mostly as an American fad. Movies like “Bend It Like Beckham” in 2002 about a British girls’ team aspiring to a soccer career, have done little to change that view.

Critical Mass

In France, which has been slow to embrace the feminist #MeToo movement, the newfound interest in women’s soccer is a recent phenomenon. It’s been boosted in part by the men’s team’s World Cup victory for a second time last year, after a first win in 1998.

In a sign that female soccer in France has hit a critical mass, France Football magazine, the bible of French soccer fans, is now devoting full pages to women’s matches and women players, even granting its first women’s award, Ballon D’Or, last year to a Lyon club player, Ada Hegerberg. Canal Plus, a pay-TV channel that’s been broadcasting men’s soccer games for years, decided to broadcast women’s matches this past season.

The Women’s World Cup has only confirmed this growing interest, with stadiums like the 48,000-seat Parc des Princes sold out for most of the matches. The French women’s team has made it into the knockout stage of the tournament, finishing the group stage at the top of Group A, after wins over Norway, Nigeria and South Korea.

Ad Revenue

On June 7, during the inaugural game of France against South Korea, TF1 attracted 9.8 million viewers on average with a peak of 10.9 million, representing a 44% audience share. On June 17, when France played Nigeria, TF1 drew 10.2 million viewers at its peak. The Sweden vs U.S. game on June 20 broadcast on cable channel TMC attracted as many as 2.36 million viewers.

According to Publicis Media, TF1 will have gained net revenue of 9 million euros as France reached the round of 16, may take in 15.5 million euros if the team makes it to the semi-finals and 19.5 million euros if it makes it to the final.

“We’re far, though, from the financial figures of men’s soccer and it is doubtful women’s could reach such a stage over the coming years,” said a spokesman for Paris Saint-Germain, the famed Paris-based club that has hosted a women’s team since 2011, who asked not to be named. “There’s still a long way to go.”

Far Cry

Nowhere is that more evident than in players’ salaries.

PSG’s star male player Neymar da Silva Santos Jr.’s monthly salary is estimated at around 3.1 million euros, according to L’Equipe sports daily. The amount excludes bonuses and advertising contracts.

Compare that to what women soccer players make. A PSG women’s team player’s monthly salary is about 10,000 euros, while Lyon’s Olympique Lyonnais, which has been grooming a women’s team since 2004 and has several international stars in its ranks, pays its players around 30,000 to 40,000 euros a month, according to figures disclosed by France Football. But on average, a female soccer player earns 2,500 euros a month in France, according to FFF’s figures.

Some female players are slowly but surely catching up. The French team’s captain Amandine Henry is chalking up contracts, featuring in an ad for Nike and being backed by telecom operator Orange and French state-owned lottery company FDJ.

To contact the reporters on this story: Geraldine Amiel in Paris at gamiel@bloomberg.net;Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Vidya Root, Phil Serafino

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