LONDON, 17 June 2025 Women's football is on track to become one of the world's top five sports by 2030, with the majority of its fanbase projected to be female, according to a new report from Nielsen Sports in collaboration with PepsiCo. The landmark study - Undervalued to Unstoppable - is Nielsen Sports' most comprehensive analysis of the sport to date, offering never-before-shared insights into its accelerating global growth, audience profile, and commercial power.
Key findings include:
The global women's football fanbase is projected to grow by 38%, rising from 500 million to over 800 million by 2030.
60% of fans will be female by 2030 - creating one of the few sports where women represent the majority audience.
Women are expected to control 75% of household purchasing decisions by 2028, underscoring the urgency for brands to act.
47% of fans are among the top global earners, and 50% are aged 25-44 - a prime commercial demographic.
The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup reached a media engagement audience of 2 billion, while sponsorship deals tripled compared to 2019.
Despite these metrics, just a small fraction of global sponsorship budgets are allocated to women's football. The report identifies this as a significant gap - and a major commercial opportunity.
We have long believed in the potential of women's football, and today, we're no longer just tracking progress, we're witnessing a breakthrough, said Samantha Lamberti, Head of International at Nielsen Sports. From media rights to sponsorship and fan engagement, this is no longer a case of future promise but present value.
Jane Wakely, EVP & Chief Consumer Marketing Officer & Chief Growth Officer, International Foods, added: At PepsiCo, we see women's football as more than just a sport, it's a cultural force with the power to connect, inspire and grow our brands. As a business, we're proud to partner with UEFA Women's Football, the FIFA Women's World Cup, the WNBA and leading athletes across the world, because we know these platforms unlock powerful passion points for an increasingly engaged and influential audience.
Women's football has seen a 60% rise in female fans over the past five years, with momentum strongest in markets like China (adding 186 million fans), Brazil (39% of the population interested), and India (35% of the population interested). In the UK, fan interest surged 15% in just two years, following the Lionesses' UEFA EURO 2022 win - a moment that helped lift Women's Super League visibility to record levels. Brazil, host of the 2027 World Cup, already over-indexes on audience engagement, but still faces gaps in sponsorship infrastructure - suggesting further upside for brands that move early.
Hosts of the upcoming UEFA European Women's Championship, Switzerland, has seen its women's football fanbase increase by 22% in 2024 alone. With the tournament, which kicks off on July 2nd, played on home soil, the nation could become Europe's next women's football hotspot.
Participation numbers echo the global fan interest trajectory. In Europe, player growth has soared: France ( 150%), Spain ( 95%), the Netherlands ( 25%), and the UK ( 24%) have all recorded major increases since 2019. In Asia, the trend is even sharper, with China seeing a 300% rise and Vietnam up 42%. Current hotspots where a significant proportion of the female population play women's football, such as Mexico (6.9%), Saudi Arabia (6.1%), and Vietnam (8.1%), highlight how local investment, national strategies, or first-time World Cup entries can rapidly accelerate interest-often before the audience numbers catch up.
With growing fan bases, surging participation, and expanding media visibility, the message is clear: this is a sport on the rise. For brands, the opportunity is not just to sponsor a game, but to help shape a movement.
Notes to Editor
Media Contact
Ben Gold, Director of Communications, EMEA
E: ben.gold@nielsen.com
M: 44 7816 252 017
About Nielsen Sports
Nielsen Sports is the global leader in sponsorship analytics and fan intelligence. It provides brands and rights holders with the insights needed to identify and connect with key audiences. Nielsen Sports supports commercial growth through expertise in fan behavior, media consumption, and engagement trends.
About PepsiCo
PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated nearly $92 billion in net revenue in 2024, driven by a complementary beverage and convenient foods portfolio that includes Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Quaker, and SodaStream. PepsiCo's product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including many iconic brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales. Guiding PepsiCo is our vision to Be the Global Leader in Beverages and Convenient Foods by Winning with pep (PepsiCo Positive). pep is our strategic end-to-end transformation that puts sustainability and human capital at the center of how we will create value and growth by operating within planetary boundaries and inspiring positive change for planet and people. For more information, visit www.pepsico.com, and follow on X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn @PepsiCo.
North America Stories
21/06/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has confirmed it will hold an open ,eeting on June 26 and has provided an agenda for that meeting....
21/06/2025
LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. has announced its acquisition of Caliente TV, a leading sports broadcasting platform in Mexico....
21/06/2025
NEW YORK Even though a majority of people now watch TV with the captions turned on, a new study found that just 10% of global TV ads include accessibility featu...
21/06/2025
Sonnet Announces Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock Now Verified as an Engineered f...
21/06/2025
Brooklyn Quarter's New Film Shot with URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF
Brie Clayton June 20, 2025
0 Comments
Shot on steps of an LA home, micro comedy Poop...
20/06/2025
(L-R) Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, and Shoshannah Stern attend the 2025 Sundance ...
20/06/2025
Ignite Lab Will Kick Off a Year of Opportunities for Emerging Filmmakers Ages 18 to 25 Marking the Program's 10th Year...
20/06/2025
Zackary Drucker attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Enigma at the Egyptian Theatre on January 28, 2025, in Park City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walk...
20/06/2025
Pixellot, the world's largest streamer of sports video - transforming three million annual hours of gameplay into personal stories of individual success - t...
20/06/2025
Rise, the award-winning advocacy group for gender diversity in the broadcast and media technology sector, is pleased to announce the global cohort for 2025. The...
20/06/2025
ZOE Broadcasting Network, Inc. (ZBNI/ZOE TV), a valued customer of PlayBox Neo for over a decade, has further solidified its position among global television ne...
20/06/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a public notice seeking comments on national broadcast ownership caps, a move tha...
20/06/2025
Feeling Unlimited, Part 1: Athletes Unlimited Softball League Deploys Remote Pro...
20/06/2025
A True Test? Cricket's Growth on the Global Stage and the Role Broadcast Can...
20/06/2025
Sky Sports goes large for the British & Irish Lions Tour with AR graphics, UHD a...
20/06/2025
ESPN's Men's College World Series Finals Coverage Combines Innovation, L...
20/06/2025
Back to All News
Turn Your Netflix to "Fool" Volume: Vir Das Drops a New Special on July 18!
Entertainment
20 June 2025
GlobalIndia
Link copied to clipboar...
19/06/2025
May 2025 was a month packed with events that captivated viewers, from the presidential campaign in Poland to the international Eurovision Song Contest. It's...
19/06/2025
During May, streaming's share of TV viewing in Mexico showed a slight decrease of 0.8 percentage points compared to the previous month, accounting for 23.5%...
19/06/2025
BRUSSELS Mediagenix, a provider of smart content solutions, has announced that it has been selected to supply global broadcaster France M dias Monde (FMM) with ...
19/06/2025
NEW YORK Charter's Spectrum Reach advertising sales division has promoted Dan Callahan to senior vice president and chief revenue officer. He succeeds Jason...
19/06/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. The European News Exchange (ENEX) added an ad hoc channel to LiveU's Matrix cloud-native IP video distribution platform, used for the first...
19/06/2025
Avid today announced an extended agreement with Amazon MGM Studios to integrate Avid's industry-leading creative tools, Media Composer and Avid NEXIS , on...
19/06/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, today introduced key innovations in the newest version of Telestream Qualify, a cloud-native quality...
19/06/2025
Limecraft, a leading provider of cloud-based production and delivery tools for the media and entertainment industry, today announced the general availability of...
19/06/2025
Grass Valley, the media and entertainment industry's leading technology innovator, today announced a significant advancement in Greek media production: the ...
19/06/2025
Linear, Live Sports and Playout Origination from Globecast's Newest Facility in Westlake Village, CA
Globecast, the leading provider of broadcast, media an...
19/06/2025
Cobalt Digital, the leading designer and manufacturer of award-winning signal processing products and a founding partner in the openGear initiative, is pleased...
19/06/2025
Lightware Visual Engineering, a pioneer in signal management, has begun rolling out paper-only packaging for its flagship products, heralding another important ...
19/06/2025
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announces that it has been selected ...
19/06/2025
HighField AI, the industry's first multimodal, agentic AI solution purpose-built for broadcast newsrooms, today announced its integration with CGI OpenMedia...
19/06/2025
Amino, a global leader in enterprise video and digital signage technology, today announced that its flagship media player, the H200W with Orchestrate, has been ...
19/06/2025
News agency ENEX, a long-term LiveU customer, has expanded its use of LiveU's Matrix cloud-native IP video distribution platform with the addition of an ad ...
19/06/2025
Broadcast Solutions, one of Europe's largest media systems integration groups, has completed a remarkable project to create an extensive infrastructure at A...
19/06/2025
Relo Metrics and VideoAmp today announced the official launch of Total Sports Performance, a next-generation measurement and attribution solution purpose-built ...
19/06/2025
In today's connected world, constituents expect real-time access to live government proceedings. In the last decade, governments worldwide have responded by...
19/06/2025
Chelsey Green Makes History as Recording Academy Board Chair The violinist, violist, vocalist, and Berklee professor is the first Black woman and youngest per...
19/06/2025
SVG Rewind: PGA Tour Introduces Drone AR Smart Tracing, Reflects on Winning Geor...
19/06/2025
Back to All News
A Father. Two Kids. And the Videos She Left Behind. Catalog to...
19/06/2025
GeForce NOW is throwing open the vault doors to welcome the legendary Borderland series to the cloud.
Whether a seasoned Vault Hunter or new to the mayhem of P...
19/06/2025
Calibr-Skaggs doses first patient with switchable CAR-T cell therapy in a phase 1 trial for metastatic breast cancer CLBR001 ABBV-461 is a novel, investigatio...
19/06/2025
Two-part vaccine strategy generates a stronger, longer-lasting immune boost against HIV Scripps Research scientists' new approach combines two immune-activa...
18/06/2025
Kasi Lemmons with fellow Daniel Kaluuya at Sundance Institute's 2016 January Screenwriters Lab. Photo by Brandon Cruz for Sundance Institute...
18/06/2025
Sam Feder at Heightened Scrutiny premiere (photo by Robin Marshall / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Bailey Pennick
Editor's note: Since the...
18/06/2025
NEW YORK Warner Bros. Discovery's Max streaming service is making some major updates to its user interface that are designed to improve content discovery an...
18/06/2025
Lionsgate and DirecTV have announced plans to launch the Lionsgate Collection, a free ad-supported streaming channel that will offer programming from the studio...
18/06/2025
BRUSSELS Mediagenix, a provider of smart content solutions, has announced that it has been selected to supply global broadcaster France M dias Monde (FMM) with ...
18/06/2025
LEXINGTON, Ky. The ad rep firm Viamedia has appointed Robert Benoit as its new chief financial officer. Benoit appointment fills a role that has been open since...
LONDON, 17 June 2025 Women's football is on track to become one of the world's top five sports by 2030, with the majority of its fanbase projected to be female, according to a new report from Nielsen Sports in collaboration with PepsiCo. The landmark study - Undervalued to Unstoppable - is Nielsen Sports' most comprehensive analysis of the sport to date, offering never-before-shared insights into its accelerating global growth, audience profile, and commercial power.
