By Amanda Woods
As one of the premier broadcast channels for sports and entertainment, the DAZN platform has played a crucial role in building and sustaining the growing audience for women’s soccer.
At the beginning of 2024, DAZN announced the cancellation of subscription fees for All Women’s Champions League matches throughout the rest of the 2023-24 season in the United Kingdom. Matches in the women’s leagues in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and Saudi Arabia were also available for free. This decision was part of the platform’s recently adopted strategy to increase viewership and enhance access to women’s football content.
In addition to expanding its broadcast coverage by securing a deal with Liga F, D1 Arkema, the Frauen Bundesliga, Serie A Femminile, and the Saudi Women’s Premier League in 2023, its recent efforts to promote women’s soccer involve boosting the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Women’s Champion League’s global exposure through its YouTube channel.
So, if this sounds interesting, continue reading to learn some more about how this strategic move reflects the growing interest in women’s soccer and how DAZN and UEFA will work together to invest more resources into the women’s game.
Viewer interest in UEFA continues to grow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCxVnxw7wRI]
DAZN’s interest in growing the viewership of the UEFA Women’s Champion League can be attributed to the popularity of the most revered annual soccer club tournament in the world. To put it into perspective, the Champions League Final garners between 380-400 million viewers on average, about four times as many as the Super Bowl. This viewership, spread across an estimated 200 countries worldwide, amounted to over €3.2 billion (approximately $3.36 billion) in revenues in 2022-23. The success is gleaned not only from men’s leagues but also from women’s football, as the UEFA also reports growth in this segment’s number of leagues, matches, and overall infrastructure.
While the 2023/24 season set a new record for live attendance, streaming services are another key segment to target to boost the success of both European men’s and women’s soccer. Thus, the decision to expand coverage and include YouTube as one of the main platforms for women’s football content is not particularly surprising.
On top of giving viewers access to live and on-demand content, streaming platforms have significantly contributed to the popularity of Champions League betting, as featured on the platform Thunderpick. By tuning into matches throughout the season, fans watching the Champions League matches can bet pre-match and on live in-play betting markets, including Match Winners, Handicaps, and more. Combined with the betting platform’s predictions, in-depth analysis, and results, players can place single bets or make accumulators with chances of higher payouts, ultimately increasing engagement and support for UEFA Champions League matches.
This is supported by YouGov’s survey on sports betting in the US, which found that live streaming is shaping user engagement, particularly with 28% of younger sports bettors (21-24 years old) being very interested in using these features. Overall, DAZN’s free coverage of the Women’s Champions League on its platform and YouTube channel is being driven by industry factors like the European tournament’s continued success and the interest it attracts among patrons wanting to tune in to live streaming and video-based platforms.
The following section highlights how DAZN plans to leverage growth drivers to help the Women’s Champions League achieve the exposure and success it deserves.
Boosting the exposure for Women’s Champions League
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQwpJY0VRY]
In line with its goal to deliver an unprecedented portfolio of soccer content worldwide, sports streaming service DAZN acquired the global rights to cover the UEFA’s premier women’s club competitions in 2021. The four-year global broadcasting partnership aims to uplift women’s soccer in the broader sports community by airing every game throughout the campaign live online on YouTube for the first two seasons (2021-2023). This multi-year agreement is one of the largest broadcast deals in women’s soccer club history, demonstrating both DAZN and the UEFA’s unwavering commitment to supporting women’s sport and inspiring the next generation of players.
The decision to broadcast live games on YouTube for free increased the Women’s Champions League viewership. The DAZN Women’s Soccer channel reached one million subscribers and garnered over 2.8 billion impressions since its launch in 2021. It also recorded 65 million views and more than 15 million watch hours in the last 12 months alone. Upon achieving such milestones, DAZN decided to make its Women’s Champions League coverage free to watch again, deviating from its original paywall model to instead use mid-roll ad breaks.
Since this is the last season of the global broadcast deal, DAZN has shared its plans to work harder and deliver greater numbers for the upcoming Women’s Euros this summer. It is also working closely with other major players in the sports rights management sector, such as sports media agency Mediapro, which is DAZN’s technical services provider. In addition to its expertise in end-to-end coverage for sporting events, Mediapro’s predominantly female broadcast crew aligns with DAZN’s vision to shed light on the essential roles women play in sports, both on and off the field.
The future is bright for women’s sports
Clearly, DAZN’s push to utilize free-to-air global exposure on YouTube brings vast promotional opportunities for the Women’s Champions League. However, the work doesn’t begin and end with DAZN and UEFA. For instance, actress Whoopi Goldberg has recently launched the first global women’s sports channel called AWSN (All Women’s Sports Network). Available in 65 countries, AWSN is set to revolutionize the world of sports by featuring top women’s sports leagues, such as the UEFA, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), and the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL).
