It was the eve of the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup final. South Africa skipper Sune Luus, who had led the country to the first-ever senior T20 World Cup final, gave what was possibly the quote of the tournament. “I think there’s a lot of good things that’s already come out of this World Cup for this country.
I think if you don’t take women’s cricket seriously now, then there’s no hope for whoever you are,” she said at New Lands in Cape Town. It was a windy Saturday afternoon and the conversation veered around women’s cricket and its future. Nothing symbolised its growing popularity better than the stadium that filled to its brim. While she was speaking in the context of South African cricket, by and large, it has been the story of women’s sports in multiple countries, including India.
In fact 2023, arguably, has already been the year of women’s sports for India, starting with a victorious U19 cricket World Cup campaign, and the historic commercial deals for the Women’s Premier League (WPL). Smriti Mandhana, senior India opener and Royal Challengers Bangalore captain, is now one of the highest-paid female cricketers in the world. A semi-final finish at the T20 World Cup, the WPL tournament that unearthed talents and saw brands getting on the bandwagon of women’s sport, and the four gold medals at the 2023 IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships—the women are stamping their authority on the global stage across disciplines. If badminton and shooting were the chosen sports for women for a while, cricket, chess, and boxing have opened new avenues.
Rome, however, was not built in a day. Over the years, several pathbreakers have laid the groundwork. If the likes of PT Usha and Anju Bobby George (athletics), Sania Mirza (tennis), Mithali Raj (cricket), Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting), Saina Nehwal (badminton) and MC Mary Kom (boxing) laid the foundation, Harmanpreet Kaur (cricket), PV Sindhu (badminton), and Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain (boxing) are carrying forward the legacy.
Not long ago, women’s sports was ignored by fans, media and associations alike. In the early 2000s, women’s cricket was in such a place where they were looking for sponsors from software companies, jewellery stores and other corporates to organise tours. They were not alone. The nation had not even heard of Mary Kom, who had won her first World Championships gold in 2002 then. The women cricketers were travelling second class to play tournaments. Players were hardly getting paid, let alone being contracted or having access to basic amenities such as grounds and gyms. Cut to January 2023, the BCCI made close to `5,651 crore from the broadcast media rights and franchises in the WPL. The Indian internationals get the same match fee as that of the men (not to be confused with annual contracts)—the domestic match fee is significantly less. With the advent of WPL, women no longer have to search for platforms to showcase their talent.
An emotional Harmanpreet, the Mumbai Indians skipper who won the inaugural title, summed up the significance of WPL for her as well as women’s cricket in the country. “The 2016 Women’s Big Bash League was the turning point of my career.
I went there and saw how they (overseas players) trained and prepared, and shared my experiences with Indian players. After that, I could see the change in approach with so many players,” she said with the trophy by her side on the night of the final. “We can get on the field and show what we can do. It is good that today so many Indian players are getting the opportunity in the WPL. The domestic players, whoever got the chance, would have learnt a lot. I am hoping that I could replicate the same with the Indian team, and the players who did well here will come and do the same for the country,” Harmanpreet added.
In fact, her India deputy Smriti Mandhana had echoed a similar sentiment. “It is brilliant because when we went to Australia and England to play in the T20 leagues, we spoke with the players there and learnt a lot. We always wanted that for the Indian cricketers, and it is finally happening. We have seen what IPL has done for men’s cricket and I am hope the same happens for women,” said the southpaw during an interaction in Mumbai.
It is not just cricket though. Women, across disciplines, have dominated the sporting field like never before. From Nehwal and Mary Kom’s bronze medals in 2012 Olympics to Sindhu’s silver and wrestler Sakshi Malik’s bronze in 2016, to weightlifter Mirabai Chanu’s silver, and boxer Lovlina Borgohain’s bronze in 2021, they have grown from strength to strength. The hockey team came inches within a medal in Tokyo before falling short. In the Chess Olympiad in Mahabalipuram last year, one of the Indian teams (Koneru Humpy, Dronavalli Harika, R Vaishali, Tania Sachdev, Bhakti Kulkarni), won bronze. It was unimaginable to achieve something like this when S Vijayalakshmi became the first woman grandmaster in 2001. There is a significant shift in the mentality with which women athletes handle pressure.
Boxing Federation of India president Ajay Singh attests to that as well. “The level of motivation and self-belief I see in the boxers now, I have never witnessed before. I have been with the sport for five years and before that our ranking was quite poor. The players have continuously progressed since then,” he says. Zareen, for example, knew she had to give it all in her last bout on the day of the final at the Worlds. “I knew it was a do-or-die fight. I was willing to give it my all and win the gold to become a two-time world champion in front of the home crowd,” says Zareen.
With the success women athletes have achieved, their popularity and that of the sport have seen a meteoric rise as well. The T20I between India and Australia in December 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai saw over 45,000 fans fill the stands. The recent WPL witnessed tens of thousands turn up almost every day for a month, and the boxing championships final too was a sell-out in New Delhi. Zareen puts this succinctly: “Everyone can see that women’s boxing is only getting better. More youngsters are taking up the sport. Financially too it is a viable career option. The 2023 Worlds witnessed the highest prize money ($100,000 for winner) and these are great signs.”
Former India tennis player Manisha Malhotra, who now heads sports excellence and scouting at JSW Sports, supports this trend. “The thing that blew me away was that the finals of the Women’s World Boxing Championships, last month in Delhi, sold out completely. There must have been at least 20,000 people there. In India, we are starved for good-quality sports. So, the minute there is a buzz around some sort of world standard, a lot of people are ready to watch. The women have come a long way; it’s now all about giving them a platform and impetus to excel.” Malhotra has been working with athletes for almost two decades. She believes it’s not just the stars, but also the ecosystem that’s helping sports grow, referring to the women’s hockey during the Olympics, which was one of the most-watched events too.
Another team sport that may see a change is women’s football. It was once an afterthought for the All India Football Federation (AIFF), but there have been multiple signs that indicate things are slowly changing. The biggest was the interest that the body took in bidding to host the U17 Women’s World Cup last year and the steps they took to prepare a team to field in the tournament. While their approach was flawed—a couple of years of exposure and training cannot make up for the lack of footballing structure—it does show the intent to develop the women’s game.
The AIFF’s new roadmap ‘Vision 2047’ also has a lot of room for women’s football, including setting up a four-tier women’s league by 2026 with a 10-team top tier (Indian Women’s League) and an eight-team second division. The body recognises that qualifying for the Women’s World Cup will not be as hard as making it to the Men’s World Cup.
Rise in brand value
The on-field success and stardom reflects in the monetary value of athletes. According to
a recent report by Tam Adex, a media research company, there is a 30 per cent surge in the number of advertisements featuring women athletes in the second half of 2022. That the franchises spent several hundred crores to get a team in the WPL is a testament to that. They know women’s sports is where the future lies, and there is a bigger purpose to it as well. “We didn’t think too much on returns for the women’s team. It’s the purpose—the ecosystem that will have larger impact. India is the growth story not just for the next decade,” says Prathmesh Mishra, CCO of Diageo and Chairman of RCB.
As for the ads, to a large extent, Indian cricket captain Harmanpreet has been the face of the biggest brands this year—Boost, Puma and Ceat Tyres to name a few. Puma, which recently signed her, said they brought the Indian captain on board after a social experiment where they asked the audience to guess their next signing. The result was a revelation about the gender perception in the country. Of
the 5,000 respondents, over 80 per cent assumed that it would be a male cricketer. Their announcement came with a tagline: cricket is everyone’s game. Harmanpreet hit her first ODI ton in the 2013 World Cup in Puma boots, which she received as a token of support. Today, she is the newest face of the brand.
She has seen both worlds of women’s cricket—from no contracts to big paydays. Hyundai Motor has signed cricketers Yastika Bhatia, Renuka Singh Thakur, Mandhana, Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues. Lovlina, Mirabai and hockey star Rani Rampal, too, have seen a surge in their brand value. “We have at least a dozen women superstars in the country who are impactful not just with the recognition part, but the commercial viability as well,” says Neerav Tomar, managing director of IOS Sports, which represents top athletes like Lovlina, Chanu and Rampal among others. “From Sania to Saina, Mary Kom to Sindhu and women cricketers, all those landmarks started from 2003-04. In the last five years, it has taken off commercially too. Earlier, the corporates would look at film stars or women in fashion, but now, women’s sports has come up as an option too, and the brand recall is higher. The response from the consumers too have been great.”
Packaging is key
While women’s sports has reached the stage from where there is no going back, the audience cannot be taken for granted. Not during the times of social media and the fast-growing following of athletes. Mandhana, for example, has 7.7 million followers on Instagram and close to a million on Twitter. Several studies have detailed the roles of marketing, packaging and presentation of a sporting event to reach a wider audience and help the commercial viability of a sport grow.
“There needs to be a package around the women. For example, women’s football shouldn’t be compared to men's. It should be packaged as a different event. The target audiences, the way you play, and the way you write about it have to be different,” says Malhotra. She adds, “There needs to be a concerted effort from various verticals to understand that when you’re watching, say, women’s cricket, it shouldn’t be compared to do what men’s cricket does.
We need to study women’s events can be packaged in a more positive and viewer-friendly manner,
so everyone enjoys it.” This brings us back to what Luus said on February 25 in Cape Town. Women’s sports has come to a stage where it is not only attractive but lucrative too. And of course, it’s only going to get bigger and more beautiful.