Professional women footballers’ stories of marketing portrayals and sponsorship: “I just had to feel grateful for what I’ve been given”

ABSTRACT

In this paper we investigate the marketing portrayal and sponsorship experiences of professional women athletes. Specifically, we examine the perspectives of professional women footballers (i.e. soccer) and the ways in which the gender ideal is reproduced, negotiated, and resisted, as well as their (re)imagined equitable sporting future. Using critical feminist narrative inquiry, twelve interviews were conducted with four professional women footballers. Four themes were constructed that call attention to: 1) the lack of commercial sponsorship that limits career growth; 2) performative partnerships that perpetuate inequities; 3) objectifying women athletes through labour exploitation; and 4) limited agency restricts resistance and transformation potential. The findings challenge the concept of sponsorship “partnerships” and expose an exploitative off-pitch reality for women athletes. This study highlights the need for systemic change in professional football for all women to be perceived as legitimate and worthy of investment.

KEYWORDS:

• Athlete branding
• gender equity
• performative partnership
• social media
• sport sponsorship
• women’s sport

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Nick Burton and Dr. Shannon Kerwin for their guidance and support of this research. As well, we express our gratitude to the women footballers who chose to dedicate their limited time to sharing their stories and advancing our academic understanding of their lived experiences. You are deeply appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Through a feminist social justice lens, we attempted to recruit participants with diverse social identities by reaching out to a variety of women athletes, as well as groups such as the NWSL’s Black Women’s Player Collective. Unfortunately, as mirrored by the findings of this study, barriers such as the lack of resources to pay participants, and limited time availability for non-commercial opportunities hindered our ability to recruit a racially diverse group of women for this study.