Women’s Health And Women’s Sport – The Economic Opportunity

According to Deloitte’s 2024 sports investment outlook report, 2023 was a landmark year for women’s sports. The Women’s World Cup lifted FIFA to a whopping $1.17 billion in revenue, a record 46.7 million people watched women’s sport on television, and the women’s National Collegiate Athletics Association tournament drew close to 10 million viewers for the final game – up 103% from the previous year.

Whichever way you look at it, the data is clear – women’s sport is attracting high attention, demonstrating high performance, and delivering high value.

However, female athletes still face many barriers. From unequal pay and opportunities to gender stereotypes, to not having their specific healthcare needs and requirements as women met.

Being an athlete puts women more at risk of certain conditions such as ACLs, menstrual irregularity, patellofemoral pain syndrome, bone stress injuries, concussions as well as sexual violence.Therefore, if we want to optimise, improve and sustain women’s performance in sport then we need to understand the physiological differences they possess.

Women’s health has historically been overlooked and underfunded. Only 8% of sports science research completed relates to conditions which exclusively affect females or affect them differently – up from the mere 6% in 2020. Conditions studied can vary from menstruation, hormonal disorders, pelvic health to nutrition and injury risk.

Understanding female menstrual cycles and physical differences is essential in optimising training and ensuring athletes are performing to the best of their abilities.

Menstrual cycles significantly impact female athletes’ physical and mental performances with fluctuations in muscle functions, energy levels, endurance, and mental health. In 2021, a study conducted on female football players found that all players felt negatively affected by their menstrual cycle, 94% felt their power was affected, 87% felt an increase in fatigue and 67% felt their confidence and focus were affected. This is the reality for most female players on the field.

An example of physical differences leading to differences in injury risk is women tending to have less lean muscle than men making them more prone to stress fractures. Stress fractures, such as ACLs, are becoming increasingly more common in female athletes. This is due to the fact that women naturally have wider hips causing their knees to tilt inwards and alter knee alignment, putting them x4-6 times more at risk of ACL tears than men.

With women’s sports set to hit £1.2 billion in revenue in 2024, we cannot continue to under-serve female athletes and deprive them of reaching their full potential. Moreover, with women representing 51% of the population worldwide, we need a broader and much deeper understanding of the health challenges that women face – and how these are heightened in sport.

Goddess Gaia Ventures (GGV) is Europe’s only dedicated women’s health investment fund with women’s sport being a key investment vertical. While most funds have women’s health as an outlier in their portfolio, GGV works with both female and male founders focused on healthcare solutions that solely, disproportionately, or differently affect women. This is particularly important in sport where there are several issues to address and innovations to be brought to market.

The symbiotic relationship between women’s health and women’s sport means that it’s not just a sensible and intuitive area to look at, but it also holds huge economic potential.

Michele Kang is the multi-club owner of Les Lyonnaise (the most accomplished women’s football team in Europe), the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Washington Spirit and the English club, London City Lionesses. Kang has recognised that it isn’t just a moral duty to raise the bar for equality and fairness on the field, but she understands that it is a huge business opportunity to back female sports where there is significant potential to create change, enhance conditions and explore innovative opportunities from a sporting and business perspective. Moreover, Chad Stender, partner at SeventySix Capital, highlights that Sports, Media and Entertainment have become “a global asset class.” One of the driving forces across the industry being “the rise and dominance of women’s sports and leagues”. As these markets grow, valuations in women’s teams will increase leading to a sharper focus on women’s health.

Established brands such as Nike and lululemon have noticed the important market women’s sports presents and have therefore developed clothing and footwear which are tailored to women athlete’s particular anatomy, height, weight, movement, speed, and power – things that were non-existent before 2022.

Early-stage, innovative companies are addressing issues relating to female athletes’ healthcare. For example, Wild.AI (an online training platform that syncs women’s hormonal cycles and menstrual symptoms to deliver tailored fitness and nutrition programmes), and FitrWoman (providing female athletes with greater access to research-backed tools to enhance performance) have started to lead the charge.

These companies understand that a team’s biggest asset is its players and as such leveraging technology to better service female athletes is a key area ripe for developments and full of financial gains. In fact, smart clubs (which utilise technology to enhance athletes’ performances) create environments that are purposefully designed for female athletes’ needs in order to maximise not only her health and wellbeing, but also optimise her performance for years.

However, for these companies to be successful they need to be able to scale and commercialise. At present there is a huge gap in funding for women’s health start-ups from Seed to Series A. Our own data of 2,000 women’s health companies across Europe found that of the 200 companies that failed, 20% didn’t reach past Seed stage even though a third of those were operating in the same sector as the 100 top performing companies.

To ensure success, start-ups must be able to tap into the US market. This is because the US has one of the largest sports markets in the world, is at the forefront of adopting new technologies in sports to give players a competitive edge and often enables brands to gain global recognition and credibility.

In order to be able to penetrate the US market, start-ups need to meet certain requirements which would enable them to successfully scale and commercialise. One of the key factors is having a strong financial backing from expert investors who have a deep understanding of the US sports market. This can mean anything from strategic connections with industry leaders or potential partners, to being able to help guide the regulatory landscape and/or the operational go-to-market strategy.

Some strategies start-ups can consider in order to “win” in the US market are (but are not limited to) building strong partnerships with local teams/leagues to develop credibility, building a recognisable brand which conveys a message and having strong distribution channels, as well as continuously innovating within the market, their product and their marketing.

Women’s sport is going to be on every investors’ radar in the coming months and years. The building blocks are there, but to really capitalise on the opportunity that women’s sports present we need to help start-ups scale with a coordinated approach to funding, research, expertise and expansion. Athletes are a team’s biggest asset, and we only need to look at men’s sports to see what ‘good’ healthcare looks like. As British elite athlete and rower Baz Moffatt neatly puts it, “we are expecting women to fit into a system that has been brilliantly designed for men to perform.”

With major upcoming events, from the Paris Olympics next month to the women’ football Euros in 2025, it’s about time we apply the same funding, attention, and urgency to women’s sport because backing women means backing high performance – and high returns.