New report reveals investment in women's sport offers positive outcome for corporate sponsors

The Victorian Government and Gemba have released The Value of 'You Can Be What You Can See' report. The report highlights that investment in women's elite sports offers corporate sponsors a clear edge in a competitive landscape.

The report also highlights the major opportunity for corporate sponsors who capitalise on current underinvestment.

The main findings shown in the report include: 

• For every $1 a corporate sponsor invests into the visibility of women's elite sport, supports the realisation of – on average – $7.29 in customer value for the sponsor.
• Early corporate supporters of women’s elite sport in Australia are benefitting from more than $650 million in customer value annually.
• Sponsorships of women’s elite sporting properties outperform men’s elite sporting properties in brand awareness, brand consideration and customer conversion.
• Greater uplifts in significant brand attributes such as ‘quality’, ‘experts’, ‘supportive’, ‘Australian’, and ‘innovative’ are being realised by current corporate sponsors.

The report states that closing the sponsorship gap between women’s and men’s elite sport in Australia would require an uplift by corporate Australia of more than $125 million annually – however, this gap closing over the next 15 years would see $49 billion in customer value being created for those corporate partners.

The Victorian Minister for Community Sport, Ros Spence said: "Corporate sponsorship of women’s sport can deliver powerful benefits for companies that want to partner with clubs and athletes. Continued growth and the demonstrated value proposition of women’s elite sport make it a compelling investment for corporate sponsors, and these findings reinforce how big an opportunity exists.”

The Victorian Director of the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation, Sarah Styles said: "We’ve seen fantastic growth in opportunities for women to be professional athletes in Australia, but a significant gap remains in how our women athletes are being supported by corporate organisations.”

The full report can be found here.

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