The key for a bright future of women’s football is at the base, where next generations can access to better opportunities in a higher developed game. At an elite level, top players, clubs and competitions are needed to break ceilings in favour of higher attention from...

For the first time, FIFA has launched a global strategy for women’s football in order to boost its growth and professionalism worldwide. To date, the top of the iceberg of FIFA’s work has been the World Cups every 4 years. In 1970, FIFA decided to strongly reinvest in...

As part of a personal “sports MBA”, I travelled to Zurich, Switzerland, two weeks ago. I believe in creating your own courses, conferences or talks, aiming directly to who you can learn the most. You’ll make the most from your time and money. During my short and...

Challenging the status quo in women’s football means standing up for a change. It could be the way players are paid, the way sponsors are treated, the way fans are taken care of or the way media is provide with content. In any of the previous challenges or in any...

One year ago, FA CEO Martin Glenn at Leaders congress shared his thoughts on the rise of women’s football in England. "Our aim is to make @UEFAWomensEURO 2021 the biggest and best showcase for women’s football ever seen in Europe." A vision that FA CEO Martin Glenn...

Women in sport is a social reality. Toni Duggan, football star playing for the English Lionesses and FC Barcelona, explains how she feels women’s sports are embedding into society. From her standpoint, women’s football is at a more mature stage than it was just five...

The words we use to communicate are a reflect of our thoughts, which show our worldview. In the women’s football industry, I have heard things like “we don’t have money”, “we’re not profitable”, “we don’t have fans” or “nobody pays us attention”. It doesn’t matter if...

Liga Iberdrola is giving signals of growth. Yesterday, at Ciutat Esportiva Dani Jarque and due to the first league match of Espanyol and Betis, around 900 spectators attended the game. A renewed and exciting atmosphere among local and away fans. Maybe it’s a...

You can be the cheapest or have a cool product. You can sell it to everyone or just to a few. The American academic Michael Porter described how companies pursue competitive advantage across a specific market: A. By lower costs than its competition. B. By a...

The price of anything is what you pay for. Simple. It’s the promise you make to your fans regarding their expectations. Is what they are willing to give up for your promise. But, have you considered what your total price for your fan is? Imagine that this weekend is...

We all want to make a difference, a change. Something we will be remembered for when we are gone. But most of us also get lost in how we measure that impact. If you track every month how many website visits your club registers, is it because you want to have the most...

Who are you upsetting? If we are not upsetting anyone, we are not doing it well enough. Upsetting means that some people will be annoyed, but others will love it. It means that it’s not made for everyone but for a certain community that share the same worldview and...

Football comes first, then marketing. National Associations across Europe are making promises in favour of a better game. Following the steps of England, the Danish Football Association has set three major goals to be achieved in the future. A vision designed to...

The more we talk, the less we achieve. We want to start diets, do marathons and travel the world. We also want to organise summer camps, launch social media campaigns and catch new sponsors to rock it at a game. The truth is, the more we share our goals and mission,...

A product can be sold until it’s manufactured. Women’s football is produced but in a beta version, a minimum viable product, and not in many cases. One of the key factor it needs for its completion is salaries, we can’t ask for a competitive, attractive and profitable...

In women’s football, I have been involved in many tight-budget projects, and who haven’t? Where money lacks, pressure for return of investment is higher, pushing for economic results to make the whole show sustainable. However, we have two options: make money taking...

Before managing business for any women’s football stakeholder you will need to learn to manage something else. Managing yourself. Knowing how, when, where and what can be your greatest contribution will be crucial to make a remarkable impact. Managing oneself means...

Content but also shape, both matter. Especially when our first impressions are usually made visually. The way we structure tournaments, leagues or summer camps is also marketing as it will directly affect their appeal to fans, brands and media. According to Palco23,...

Football transcends cultural, racial and gender barriers. A powerful tool to shake and to challenge the status quo for both those who play and those who don’t. Access to football means development at many levels, opportunities and confidence. At the same time, it’s...

Women’s football will be a grown-up start-up. There will be more skilfull players, more resources in clubs’ banks accounts, more media visibility, more sponsors and more fans waiting for the weekend. It could be my mistake or just my point of view, but as...

England is boosting domestic women’s football not only towards hosting the next 2021 Women’s Euro but to achieve the level of countries as Germany or France. After Women’s Euro 2017, they announced their goal to double the amount of women in football by 2020,...

When you make a decision, there are people, resources, time and effort involved. Decisions lead to outcomes and to accomplished goals. Most of the decisions we make are at very low or zero cost, so learning to make decisions at the speed of light help us to improve...

When making a decision, we choose based on what scenario we think that will work best. It’s difficult to assess outcomes that haven’t happened yet. We can’t be totally confident about how fans will react to an increase in ticket prices. It can become particularly...

Win-win is over. Often, time, effort and maybe money alters the win-win equation for the final customer or fan. I could get a 40€ ticket refund if my team loses 0-5 but the time spent and the pain felt at the game would amount a lot more than the ticket price....

Experts say that an excellent product doesn’t need advertisement. In women’s football, we must need to be aware of product variables that need to be improved before going in search of media and sponsorship. One of them are football boots. Isn’t it surprising that most...

Competitiveness on the pitch is set to keep growing in the next years. Nowadays, attention and investment are attracted by good sports performance and a solid fan base. From a marketing perspective, we can do everything at our hands to increase media and digital...

From the inside out. To change women’s football, we must first change ourselves. If the goal is to develop a professional sport, having all the players earning a minimum and decent salary, we have to treat it like that: Players not accepting certain economic, social,...

Women’s football needs to grow first at the office before doing it at the pitch. A vicious circle involving investment, good players, fans, sponsors and media attention to get more investment. Regarding on the sports property you want to work for, the goals and...

90% of success is preparation. This is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever been told. Anticipating the situation in order to be ready to rock is a key factor to achieve your goals. One of them is probably getting new fans. But what should we know in advance...

We usually and easily get trapped in to-do lists and musts in order to get work done. For example, endless SEO-well-ranked posts about X vital steps to develop a successful digital strategy. Since when do all companies function in the same way? Effective marketing is...

Today, I want to listen instead of talking. I want to know what matters to you, what do you think I could improve in order to help you to make better decisions in women’s football. Our community of women’s football business professionals is growing and the focus must...

This week I’m reading The Effective Executive, a best-seller about getting right things done. Peter Drucker, the author, details what’s the behaviour and mind-set of highly effective executives. Women’s football is at a stage when many areas need to grow at the same...

You know you want to be part of women’s football growth. You want it to be better because you were in, but it’s difficult to start. Or maybe opportunities that might seem attractive keep you out from the initial goal. The truth is, you will never quite know. Small and...

Imagine you could start improving your national women’s football today. What would you do? How could you achieve in 6 months what you have planned for 10 years? Epic questions lead to epic results. Women’s football can advance from different levels and at many speeds....

The line-up of traditional marketing was advertising, mass media, generous budgets and endless marketing plans. The line-up of permission marketing is relevant content, personal connection, specific channels for niche markets and flexible marketing strategies....

If there is a lot of room for marketing in women’s football, let’s do it with a personal approach. Let’s build a marketing designed to build relationships, connections and experiences, rather than messages that go directly to the spam inbox. The digital environment is...

Doing business in any industry it’s about picking an existing problem and offering a useful solution. In women’s football, you can call them problems or opportunities. If you want to work in the industry, see what it needs and match it with your strengths. We need...

After fans, players are the most important asset in women’s football. They are the first content producers in the everyday life of this sport. Trainings, press conferences, personal lives, travels and much more. They connect the different stakeholders for the...

Dear current and future sports marketers, What’s it going to take to be the best women’s football marketer of your country this year? How can you make a huge impact as a women’s football marketer? Infinite strategies for endless goals. But if you want to advance in...

We want to attract sponsors for the jersey, stadium and social media. We want to fill 70% of the stadium capacity on average on matchday. We want to sell season tickets to at least 5,000 fans. We want to sell out all the merchandising stock of the season. We want to...

Near where I live, there’s a shop that sells cheese, lots of giant pieces of cheese. Last Saturday, when I was walking by the store I saw a girl that got shocked when she looked at the shop-window. With eyes like pieces of cheese, she exclaimed a big “Oh, my god!”....

What’s it going to take to be the best sports marketer in women’s football this year? Great questions will lead you to great results. Poor questions will lead you to poor results. Every goal comes from a question, where do we want to go? We decide how to frame that...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend, again, the international Barcelona tennis tournament, the 500 ATP Open Banc Sabadell. It was the first day, where games are not supposed to be very attractive but cool enough for who likes tennis. As you can see in the...

Innovators are the first market group which will take the time and risk to listen and give a try to your story. Innovators will be the first to convince the rest of the curve about the sexiness of your product. If we take into account that we believe a lot more our...

In every project you work on, you should make clear the following questions from the start: Who’s it for? What’s it for? It begins by picking your market, selecting that segment or niche you are aiming to because you can make a positive impact on them. In women’s...

Leaders are leaders because people choose them, not because their status. Today, you don’t need to be the boss to lead people and inspire change. You just decide it, by picking yourself and being humble and driven for the good of your peers. It’s about finding...

Making a decision today to get to your desired tomorrow. Women’s football in many countries lack of a solid structure that allow girls from the base to make it to the top. Missed opportunities for talent, equality and role models. This is why is so important...

Yesterday, I reached the milestone of having written posts about women’s football marketing 60 days in a row. I feel identified with the all or nothing philosophy. So I decided that If I was going to provide value to women’s football professionals it had to be...

Global women’s football is making it through the dip. As The Dip author Seth Godin states, “The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastering. Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny majority who are able to push a bit longer than most”. The dip it’s the...

At Naru Sports, the sports management company who I lead the communications for, we have developed a project focused on creating women athletes’ brands. From the very first day, we have focused on leveraging an opportunity and solving a problem that can potentially or...

How many spam mails do you delete everyday? How many ads do you skip on Youtube? How many banners do you click? We live a digital revolution that saturates us with far more advertising to which we pay far less attention. Our trust costs more, so the brands that make...

Most things we can think of seemed weird at the beginning. Did you ever imagine: Drones giving away pizza in a venue? Giving a branded name to a stadium? Blind women playing football? Talking to a player in one click through social media? Promoting a car inside a...

Want to work in women’s football? Start precisely by doing that, working. One of the best pieces of advice I have ever got to create my own opportunities where I wanted to is to work in advance. Giving before asking, and a lot. I have lived most of my life in...

In many cases, women’s football doesn’t have big teams of people to operate, yet. Neither huge budgets to launch marketing booms, yet. Neither millions of fans waiting for the weekend to come, yet. From my point of view, women’s football provides little time compared...

According to TED speaker Eduardo Briceño, in order to get better at the things we care about, we need to work either on the performance and the learning zone. We dedicate a lot of time to work, perform and get results but, how much time do you save for improving your...

In a previous post, we saw the importance of stories to connect with fans, brands and media. The so-called storytelling as central tool for making a positive impact through marketing. What is marketing? In my opinion, marketing means causing a positive impact in what...

There are many valid models, many ways. In the end, what it matters if you reach your goal following your values and principles. In marketing, you might hear that the only valid option is to offer a brilliant product that doesn’t need marketing, or following the key...

As part of the Mobile World Congress, 4 Years From Now is an integrated event and congress that takes place at Fira Barcelona. It’s a set of stands, conferences, activities, networking and opportunities for start-ups to grow their business. Yesterday, I had the...

I have been lucky enough to be involved in many projects within women’s football, from tournament organisation, participation in congress and events, athletes brand management, market research or as a fan. In this article, I would like to provide 3 personal learnings...

Marketing is no longer about the stuff we make, but about the stories we tell. This quote of the author Seth Godin expresses how marketing has evolved in the last decade, shifting from a production or industrial based economy towards a connecting and ideas scenery. We...

Act today, everyday, to obtain the best results tomorrow. Effort, yes, but also positive change. As sports marketers, understanding how the different stakeholders in the women's football industry interact is an obligation, as well as the many existent barriers to...

As managers in clubs, athletes or professionals in women's football, are we selling thinking about our clients or our bank account? In the short run, you will be able to convince almost anyone to try your product or service, however they will not probably repeat if...

The fact that women's football is growing and it has a great potential to go is as obvious as interesting. Especially, it brings a big opportunity for women's football marketing professionals. In this article, I would like to offer you the main numbers to make women's...

Purpose. Mission. Commitment. Empathy. How can I bring more value to more people? How can I improve the lives of those who listen to me? These are values and questions leading to initiatives that connect and make change in those people who share the same vision. This...

It is no trend. Not an amateur sport. Not a sport for families and friends. Women's football is a reality within an expanding market with unstoppable numbers. For very good or very bad, the accelerated growth of this discipline will be one of the great changes that...

A vision. An idea. A future. One why. Only if you are able to effectively communicate the reason why you exist for certain people to feel identified, you will be able to engage to change what you care about. Simon Sinek in his The Golden Circle theory explains how...

Special matches as derbies or European competitions are capable of breaking records with extraordinary peaks in the season attendance chart. To lose oneself trying to satisfy all the spectators, from faithful followers to opportunists, would be worse than scoring an...