The Women’s Euros kick off on the 2nd of July, and all eyes will be on the Lionesses as they battle to defend their winning title. 

The 2022 Women’s Euros put women’s football back on the map, and since then, the game has been growing at a rapid pace. Research from the Women’s Sport Trust found that fans are watching Barclays Women’s Super League matches for longer than ever before, with a total of 15.1 million tuning in in total. While the number of women and girls playing football has increased by 56% in the past four years. 

Yet, when it comes to brand involvement and sponsorship, uptake remains much slower. Women's sport has long faced a double bind; it is in need of investment to facilitate growth but brands are hesitant to invest while the game is still in its early phases. However, the brands that get involved now are arguably the ones that will reap the biggest rewards.

News that PepsiCo has renewed its UEFA Women's Football sponsorship to 2030 shows that smart brands are seeing a long-term brand-building investment opportunity. The prize money for this year’s tournament is bigger than ever. It is clear that investment is growing, but there is still a way to go. With this in mind, we asked industry experts if the 2025 Women's Euros will be a tipping point for equitable investment in women's football?

The 2025 UEFA Women’s European Championship holds significant potential to become a tipping point for equitable investment in women’s football, but whether it truly will, will depend on what happens once the spotlight fades.

Momentum is undeniably strong. Building on the legacy of the 2022 Euros, which shattered attendance records and ignited public interest, the 2025 tournament arrives at a time of soaring commercial engagement. UEFA has pledged a 156% increase in prize money, with winners potentially earning €5.1 million, and has committed €1 billion, over six years, to grow the women’s game. Corporate confidence is rising too. Barclays has doubled its investment through 2028, and global revenue for women’s elite sports reached $1.28 billion in 2024, with football leading the charge at $555 million.

Yet while these figures signal progress, they don’t guarantee equity. Systemic underinvestment remains deeply rooted, especially in domestic leagues and grassroots infrastructure. The Swiss league, for example, despite being in the host nation, still lacks a clear, ambitious long-term strategy. Look at Blackburn Rovers, who just a few weeks ago were forced to withdraw from the WSL 2 due to lack of funding by club owners ‘unwilling’ to invest. Women’s elite sports properties are still valued at just 12% of men’s, reflecting a persistent commercial gap.

Ultimately, the 2025 Women’s Euros will not be a silver bullet. One tournament cannot erase decades of imbalance, but it can be a catalyst. If federations, sponsors, and broadcasters treat it not just as a moment of celebration, but as a mandate for structural change, that means investing in long-term infrastructure, treating the women’s game independently to the men’s and approaching it as such, equal access to facilities, expanded media coverage, and independent commercial growth.

The foundations are stronger than ever. Whether the tournament becomes the defining tipping point depends on the collective will to fund the future, not just applaud the present.

With record prize money, guaranteed player payouts, increased club funding, grassroots legacy plans and growing media visibility, I’m sure UEFA would say a big YES. But after decades of institutional, commercial and media underinvestment, the gap between the men’s and women’s games remains vast. The prize pot for the men’s Euros 2024, for example, is over eight times that of the women’s, despite the latter having increased by 156% since 2022.

The women’s game was banned in England for 51 years. Even after the ban was lifted, players had no choice but to wear men’s kits. It wasn't until 2019 that the Lionesses received a kit tailored to their bodies.

That neglect has left cultural gaps. No archive of iconic moments. No shared memories from bygone tournaments. No classic retro shirts. To help raise awareness of this, we are working with Foudys on The Missing Shirt, a campaign that highlights the history women’s football was never allowed to have, by creating a retro shirt that symbolises what was lost.

According to the Crossing the Chasm model, women’s football is right on the edge. It is no longer niche, but not yet truly mainstream. The early adopters are in. The early majority is watching. Visibility spikes during major tournaments, but funding, infrastructure and storytelling still lag behind.

Women’s Euro 2025 could be the tipping point. But there is still a hell of a long way to go before the women’s game achieves parity with the men’s. Women’s football does not need another moment. It needs a movement and the kind of backing the men’s team received while women and girls were told, for over half a century, that the game was not for them.

The 2025 Women’s Euros could really be the moment women's football gets the investment it’s been long overdue. The 2022 Women’s EURO’s smashed records with a global live viewership of 365 million, more than double the 178 million from 2017. The UEFA final alone drew around 50 million viewers worldwide. In the UK, the Lionesses’ Wembley final peaked at 17.4 million on BBC One, with another 5.9 million streams. These numbers display the audience for women’s football is there, when it's made accessible and visible.

Supporting these huge TV numbers were  the supporters, who showed up to fill the stadiums too. EURO 2022 pulled in an average crowd of 18,544 per game, more than twice the previous record.

Following the success of the Women’s 2022 EURO’s, the hype carried through to the WSL. Revenue jumped 50% to £48 million in 2022‑23, and average matchday attendance tripled, from about 1,900 to 5,600 a game. The success across professional football trickled down into grassroots, as the 2022 Euros created over 400,000 new opportunities for women of all ages to engage in the game from a grassroots level. Additionally, WSL clubs and brands have started investing to back players in a number of new ways, from upgraded training facilities to casting a spotlight on how women’s football equipment should be tailored to them.

However, two years on from the fever of the EUROs, a BBC research piece found the 12 WSL clubs in total averaged attendances of 7,366 in 2023-24, compared with 6,662 in 2024-25, a marked decrease. This demonstrates how influential and investment worthy international women’s football is and the halo effect it has on the footballing pyramid.

2025 could be a tipping point, but only if everyone keeps the momentum going. If sponsors see consistent crowd figures and ratings, TV investment will continue to grow, and clubs will get the resources they need. Right now, women’s football has the fans, the stories, the performances and the numbers to prove it's a solid investment. The question isn’t if it deserves equitable backing, it’s when it will get it. 

We’re still a long way from equitable investment in women’s sport, but you probably don’t need me to tell you that.

True equity demands more than money; it means dismantling long-held societal stereotypes and shifting institutional structures.

While we chip away at that small task, major international tournaments will continue to move the dial.

The Women’s Sport Trust found that 53% of new viewers to women’s sport during the UEFA Women’s Euros England 2022 went on to watch more women’s sport afterwards. VISA research also shows that while most men’s football fans are driven by tournament wins, 49% of women’s football fans are motivated by supporting women’s sport overall.

With home Women’s Rugby World Cup in September (England as favourites) and a home ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in 2026, the next 12 months will see a surge in visibility, engagement and yep - investment.

So, here’s my advice to marketers: Rip up the men's sport playbook. Build campaigns that speak to these emerging audiences, fans who are looking for something new, who have disposable income, and who aren’t tied to old sporting traditions. They want a sporting ecosystem that reflects them, not the past.

It won’t happen overnight. But to borrow sentiment from a certain sports brand: So build.

The 2025 Women’s Euros truly feels poised as a tipping point, not just on the pitch, but in redefining the fan experience and championing equitable investment.

Fandom is evolving from passive viewership to an immersive theatre of engagement. 

Take Sweden’s Soft Hooligans: they’re not just cheering, they’re curating family-friendly, community-based experiences with tifos, megaphones, and shared rituals. This rise in fan-led culture mirrors the evolving arc of the “Experience Economy,” where people seek transformative, participatory events over mere mindless consumption.

On the investment side, UEFA’s €1 billion Time for Action (uefa.com) strategy and a 156% prize fund boost show structural commercial commitment. In this new era, it’s the quality of experience, not just the capital that signals real commitment and fan understanding. Brands like Lidl, Unilever (unilever.co.uk), and Volkswagen (uefa.com) are pre-emptively activating across Swiss host cities, powering multisensory fan zones with food, play, and tailored football immersion. Zurich’s Europaallee and Bern’s Bundesplatz become cultural villages, not just match venues.

And beyond Switzerland, fan experiences are scaling. In the UK, TOCA Social is hosting viewing parties across London and Birmingham with football games, DJs, and family zones, blending live sport with social competitive play. This is fandom as belonging.

Even omnichannel brands like Amazon have curated ‘Women’s Football Shops’ stocked with fan gear, noisemakers, snacks, and interactive giveaways at key viewing zones. All of this embodies how fans' expectations are changing, moving from theatre to transformative, participatory stages.

The Women’s Euros 2025 isn’t just a tournament. It’s a communal movement, a stage where investment, culture, and identity converge, and the game becomes something truly shared.

‘The 2025 Women's Euros has potential to be a significant moment for women’s football, but whether it becomes a true tipping point for equitable investment remains to be seen. It’s encouraging to see more brands recognise the value in supporting the women’s game – visibility on the pitch and screen plays a critical role in normalising women in sport and inspiring the next generation. However, investment still pales in comparison to the men’s game, both in funding and the scale of flagship opportunities available. 

For the Euros to spark lasting impact, investment must go beyond the match. Supporting women’s football isn’t just about backing elite athletes but building inclusive pathways for girls and women to participate, lead, and thrive at every level of sport. 

Campaigns like Sport England’s This Girl Can have shown how powerful these efforts can be when brands think beyond the pitch. With 66% of women saying they feel excluded from the world of exercise, it’s vital to establish a new norm of female involvement in sport. Because belonging starts with inclusion. 

This presents a huge opportunity for brands. Working with grassroots organisations, communities and educational bodies is still largely untapped territory where innovative partnerships can stand out and continue to shape the future of women’s sport long after the Euros.’

The rise in technical talent and rich player storytelling has driven cultural momentum behind women's football. Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences are emotionally invested and demanding equal representation. Major global brands are now consistently activating across both club and international tournaments, committing to long-term strategic partnerships, rather than one-off campaigns. We’ve moved into an era of sustained interest and belief in the women’s game.  It’s no longer just a trend; it’s a cultural shift.

The time to get involved is now. UEFA is targeting over 500 million global viewers for WEURO 2025, and Switzerland’s strong infrastructure and central European location indicate it’s likely to be strongly attended on the ground.  It’s a huge validation for the commercial opportunity behind sponsorship, as this level of potential reach is not something brands can afford to miss.

But with mounting pressure on UEFA and FIFA to deliver fairer funding, prize money and broadcasting rights, we’re at a crunch point. With more record-breaking sponsorship deals across multiple tournaments, brands risk stretching activation budgets thin. New approaches are needed to drive deeper impact, such as linking campaigns across properties and connected sponsorship across both men’s and women’s football, to distribute funds without undermining the women’s game.

It’s a wider conversation than brand investment; that’s just the tip of the iceberg. To achieve true long-term investment equity, we need to see meaningful action, such as revenue reinvested into grassroots programmes, league infrastructure and talent development. WEURO 2025 provides the perfect prompt to inspire this change.