There are 100 days before the opening match of the Women´s Euro 2022 at Old Trafford. To celebrate that, this Monday, the remaining tickets went on general sale at 8 am, and by 8.43 am, all available seats for the final at Wembley on 31 July had sold out.
The competition, held at 10 stadiums in England from 6-31 July, expects the biggest crowds ever seen at the Women’s European Championship. UEFA says it has sold more than 350,000 of the 700,000 tickets available, compared with the previous record of 240,000 tickets sold for the last tournament in the Netherlands in 2017. With pricing ranging from £5 to £50 per seat, tickets have been acquired by a diverse, youthful demographic of residents of 89 countries: 48% of those buying are female, and 34% are aged under 35.
Women’s football is flourishing off the pitch and on the pitch, and UEFA knows it perfectly. The European federation has lucrative long-term agreements with several high-profile companies. Several recent agreements exemplify the growing role of sponsorships in women’s sports. This is a list of those deals:
UEFA Women’s Football Official Sponsors
- Visa.
- Adidas.
- Euronics.
- Grifols.
- Heineken.
- Just Eat Takeaway.com.
- Lay’s (PepsiCo)
- Hublot.
Euro 2022 Official Sponsors
- Booking.com
- Hisense
- Volkswagen
- Nike
Euro 2022 National Sponsors
- Lego
- Pandora
- Starling Bank
In 2018, Visa signed a seven-year deal to become the first-ever sponsor of UEFA dedicated only to women’s football, becoming the main partner of flagship events such as the UEFA Women’s Champions League and the UEFA Women’s EURO until 2025. The global payments technology firm will support women’s soccer across all game levels. Charlotte Hogg, chief executive of Visa Europe, expressed: “It is an exciting time for women’s football. Twenty-one million women and girls participate in the beautiful game across Europe, and at Visa, we want to celebrate every single one of them”.
Ram Krishnan, the global chief commercial officer of PepsiCo, said: “PepsiCo is proud to unify and strengthen our global partnership with UEFA to now include UEFA Women’s football. This is an energising moment in the evolution of the sport – and for our business worldwide. We look forward to helping accelerate the vibrant women’s game and are committed to the future of women’s football”.
Bert Hoyt, Nike’s VP/GM EMEA, mentioned: “Nike and UEFA share a common ambition, and that is for women’s football to realize its enormous potential. UEFA’s competitions represent the elite of club and international football, and through our unparalleled innovation and support of the women’s game, from grassroots to elite level, we will grow football for the next generation of female players”.
Guy-Laurent Epstein, Director of Marketing at UEFA, declared: “We are delighted to have the LEGO Group, Pandora, and Starling Bank join us as the first national partners of UEFA Women’s EURO 2022. The addition of these three major brands is further proof of the scale of this event and our ambition to make it the biggest women’s European sport event ever. It is important for us to have partners on board who share the same values, working together collectively to deliver what is set to be a record-breaking tournament that further grows the women’s game”.
The high expectation of getting a ticket for the tournament and the extensive list of sponsorship for both the UEFA Women´s football and the UEFA Women´s Euro 2022 reaffirms the unstoppable growth of women´s football; it is a lucrative business, and every day more companies notice it and make the necessary investment in developing the practice of the sport and in increasing the industry, from grassroots to the highest level.
