Integrated women's football teams can attract larger stadium crowds

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ABSTRACT Research Question Women's sports have seen a trend of diversification recently, with women's and men's teams merging to form integrated football clubs. While such integrated clubs (e.g. Paris Saint-Germain), in particular, have determined the media headlines with record attendances, governing bodies have begun drafting policies to accelerate such strategic integrations. However, empirical evidence on whether integrated women's football teams (which may benefit from brand spillover effects, among other things) attract larger crowds to their stadiums is limited at best. Naturally, this raises the question of whether being an integrated football club matters for women's football stadium attendance demand. Research Method Using ordinary least squares regression with season-level fixed effects with a dataset of 1,506 games played over 11 seasons before and after the COVID pandemic in Germany, France, and Sweden, we are the first to present robust evidence on the association between being an integrated football clubs and stadium attendance demand for European women’s football across multiple markets. Results and Findings We find that integrated women's football teams can attract larger crowds. Intriguingly, such demand synergies, however, are not a given emerging from a strong brand effect, per se. Instead, women's football club executives must proactively unlock these synergies to avoid adverse effects. Implications Our findings suggest that women’s football may achieve a higher potential through integration, but only if the women’s team is managed as more than an ancillary second team. As such, despite being formulated with the best intentions, forced integration policies might backfire.