WSL touts average length of match viewership as key audience engagement metric

The GIST: The Women’s Super League (WSL) is getting bigger and better, and the numbers continue to prove it. After the season wrapped in May, new data from the Women’s Sport Trust (WST) and Future Sport & Entertainment indicate UK soccer fans are spending more time watching WSL matches than ever before.

📈 Viewers are staying engaged with WSL broadcasts for longer than ever before. They watched for a record 40 minutes on average during the 2023-24 season (up 11% YoY), a little less than half the average length of a WSL match. Don’t touch that dial.

📺 BBC kept WSL audiences engaged the longest. Matches shown on Sky Showcase averaged 43 minutes (up 26% YoY), but BBC One’s WSL broadcasts averaged 47 minutes among viewers (up 18% YoY). BBC was also home to the most-watched WSL game ever: a Manchester Derby that peaked at 997M viewers.

🔵 Arsenal brings the crowds, but Chelsea brings the views. Though Arsenal broke the WSL attendance record thrice this past season, Chelsea had the highest broadcast reach of all WSL clubs — an estimated 17.5M viewers tuned into its 18 televised games. The WSL champions were followed by Manchester City’s 15.8M viewers and Arsenal with 15.4M. Over land and sea.

📱 The WSL is growing its reach beyond broadcasting. Its TikTok account accrued 147M views during the 2023-24 season, up from 92.9M the previous season, making it the top domestic women’s sports league on the app.

Zooming out: The WSL season runs from September to May, which partially covers the content gap for NWSL fans during the American league’s three-month offseason. With Chelsea and Arsenal playing exhibition matches in the U.S. this summer, the WSL is primed to charm North American audiences.

• The U.S. already has hubs of Premier League (EPL) fandom, which could translate to the WSL when its UK media rights (and U.S. media rights under CBS) expire. Broadcasting played a large role in scoring $7.43B in revenue for the EPL last year, and the WSL is on a similar track. Put it on the telly.