Women's "summer of sport" is well underway. 12.2 million Brits tuned in to see Chloe Kelly slot the Euros-winning penalty last month — the most-watched moment of British television this year. The Women's Rugby World Cup kicks off today, with a final tipped to break attendance records.
Money is flowing into the category. Deloitte valued elite women's sport at $1.88 billion in 2024 — up 240% in just four years. But most of that cash still comes from corporate mainstays — Visa, Amazon, Booking.com — brands who, as strategy studio Sibling points out, have "little real connection to the communities behind the game, let alone the culture of soccer itself."
Legacy sport is bound up in tribalism: geography, inheritance, decades-old rivalries. The fandom emerging in women's soccer isn't. It reflects how culture moves now: digital-first, values-led, porous.
These fans are fashion-conscious, follow portfolios of athletes, and are — according to Women's Sports Trust — nearly 10 million strong in saying they'd rather buy from brands who back women's teams.
Women's soccer isn't a finished product you merely buy visibility from. It's a culture still in formation. The brands who help shape it now won't just sponsor the game — they'll define it.
On the shores of Lake Como, the experiment is already underway.
Operating on the old reflexes
Most of sport still leans on infrastructure designed for another era: mass audiences tuning in to scheduled broadcasts, tribal loyalty rooted in geography, sponsors as billboard wallpaper.
That system worked when soccer was one of the few communal spectacles on offer. But women's sport is coming of age in a culture where audiences — particularly young women — build identity across feeds, fashion and fandoms.
Research from FC Como Women's own brand work paints a different picture: culture-forward, digital-first, global in outlook, with as much emphasis on social connection as on sport itself. Off-pitch matters as much as on-pitch. Loyalty is fluid — to athletes as much as to clubs.
Too often, though, the storytelling hasn't caught up. Branding around women's soccer is still packaged in clichés — plucky underdogs, heartwarming triumphs — as if its only legitimacy lies in echoing the men's blueprint.
Sibling describe this as the gap between brand presence and cultural presence. When brands show up and simply slap a logo on, even glossy plays like Calvin Klein's tie-in manage to feel oddly detached.
Only a handful of moments from this year's Euros — Vogue's Lionesses fashion spread, Gyals Got Game and Studs watch parties — suggested what branding could look like when the game is treated as culture rather than campaign inventory.
Imagination, not just investment
We asked Sibling founder Lucinda Bounsall why so many well-funded, well-intentioned campaigns still land in the lower half of their cultural quadrant.
"I think brands are being held back by a lack of imagination and a fear of entering a space they don't fully understand," she says. "So they default to safe, templated sponsorships instead of building something that could actually shift the culture."
Real potential, she adds, is often watered down through endless sign-off processes, "perceived as too risky to decision makers who probably still use Facebook as their main social channel."
"What's missing is proximity to the culture they're trying to reach — and the willingness to back an idea that might feel uncomfortable in a boardroom but land brilliantly in the real world."
"Brands and media are too often waiting for traction before they'll get involved," Lucinda explains. "But if you wait for women's sport to prove itself, you've already missed the moment to shape its trajectory."
Nike's early investment in women's basketball and O2's long-term support of England Women's Rugby show how consistent backing can create the very traction others wait for. "They understood their investment could help create those numbers."
Heritage, manufactured
Where most women's clubs still operate piecemeal — a sponsorship here, a content strand there — Como has set out to build an operating system: a structure designed to function across soccer, fashion, hospitality and media from day one.
Mercury/13's ownership gave the club freedom from men's soccer hierarchies. That autonomy made possible a string of firsts: European women's football's first creative director; Communion Studio's stripped-back design language intended to look as good on a tote bag as a kit; and a visual world that speaks fluently to both locals on the lake and followers on Instagram.
"The ambition was creating a brand with crossover appeal — at home in Como, and in the wardrobes of cool people following the club from anywhere," says Andy Harvey, Communion founder and ECD.
The result is an identity unbound to the pitch: a monochrome palette, fashion-inspired monogram, and campaigns that place players against Como's mountain landscapes. Even the slogan — We Belong Here — refuses the "plucky underdog" script.
That independence has also allowed Como to address details often overlooked. Their partnership with Maaree — a women-led sports bra brand — was the first of its kind in European football. Their Nike deal made them the first independent women's side to sign with the swoosh. WeAre8's model allocates 5% of all Italian ad spend on its app directly to the club, making Como the first team in Europe to wear a shirt backed exclusively by female-led companies.
Como has created clear on-ramps for brands that want to be more than background noise. These partnerships prove that global partners see standalone women's teams as commercially viable — and align with audiences who reward brands showing up with originality and care.
That systems-thinking extends to players through The Beyond programme — investing in financial literacy, career transitions and personal development, reframing athletes as long-term collaborators rather than short-term assets.
"The product that we are building, it's a product on the pitch, but it's also a product off the pitch, both for our players and our fans," explains CEO Elena Mirandola.
The view from the feed
Media has been re-engineered in the same spirit. Commentary led by Victoire Cogevina Reynal prioritises storytelling over tactics, closer to podcasts than punditry.
"Most broadcast soccer feels like commentary first, emotion second," Andy explains. "Our audience flips that. They want to feel part of the story — the tone, the atmosphere, the sense of belonging."
The Como Insider Instagram provides continuous behind-the-scenes access, designed for always-on engagement. DAZN-hosted watch parties in London — featuring velvet sofas, cannoli and champagne flutes — offer marketers a template for soccer-as-cultural-occasion.
"People are really interested in the viewing parties because they're also interested in a reason to get together," Andy notes. For this new fandom, it's less about ninety minutes of soccer and more about creating a shared space, a ritual.
"The identity you form with a club, team or player is often more about shared values and kinship today. It's a really interesting generational shift — fandom is less about where you were born and more about who you feel aligned with."
That shift is exactly the opening. Como's advantage is the ability to align every layer — kit, content, community — into one coherent system that reveals the opportunity for brands to go beyond sponsorship inventory and help build the cultural blueprint from the ground up.
Co-writing new codes
If FC Como Women shows what's possible when a club builds an operating system from scratch, it also exposes why so few others manage it.
Many women's clubs are bolted to men's organisations, inheriting brand codes, sponsorship hierarchies and layers of sign-off. That affiliation provides financial stability but little strategic freedom. Decision-makers still default to men's sport as the template, making anything uncomfortable in a boardroom impossible to execute.
Como's independence freed them to experiment with commentary, split kit sponsorships, and lifestyle-led experiences without waiting for permission. If Como illustrates what's possible, it also makes the current state harder to excuse.
Too much of women's sport still runs on borrowed blueprints — templated sponsorships, risk-averse campaigns, visibility treated as the finish line. The fandom, meanwhile, has already moved ahead: expressive, intentional, joyful.
For marketers, the question isn't whether women's sport is worth the investment. That's already been answered. The real question is whether you want to play by the old book, or co-write something new.
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Natasha Randhawa, newsletter editor.
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