Business or Cause? Gendered Institutional Logics in Women’s Professional Soccer

Abstract

Despite women's increased participation in sport, women's team sport leagues have yet to find a lasting toehold at the professional level. Using ethnographic data collected with U.S. women's professional soccer in 2011-2012, I situate the work of selling women's soccer in the complex institutional environment of contemporary women's sports organizations. League owners and employees were dually influenced by the hypercommercialized model of success presented by men's professional sports and an institutionalized, depoliticized feminist model of sport promoting empowerment and role modeling for girls and women. As a result, "business" and "cause" institutional logics presented different organizational goals. These logics contained divergent assumptions about the extent of gender (in)equality facing women's professional sports. They were also understood somewhat differently along gender lines, with men perceiving empowerment and profit to be compatible goals more often than women. Implications for the viability of women's professional sports leagues are discussed.

The determinants of stadium attendance in elite women’s football: Evidence from the UEFA Women's Champions League

“…This means that despite the fact that the women's game has experienced increasing levels of attention by football governing bodies in recent years (FIFA, 2014(FIFA, , 2016; UEFA, 2017a), these efforts have not yet resulted in increased numbers of spectators. In line with previous studies, this provides little support for the idea that fan interest in women's football is developing constantly and continuously (Allison, 2016;Meier et al, 2016;Southall et al, 2005).…”

“…Owners and executives of women's clubs have expressed their concerns regarding the increasing costs and the concomitant lack of revenues (e.g. ticketing, broadcasting) available to women's clubs (ECA, 2014), thus raising scepticism over the possibility that women's football can become financially sustainable in the near future (Allison, 2016;Meier, Konjer & Leinwather, 2016;Southall, Nagel & Le Grande, 2005). In practice, the financial structure of women's football clubs resembles that of men's amateur clubs, where the major sources of income come from private donations and subscriptions, with a much less substantial contribution from prize money and gate receipts (ECA, 2014;FIFPro, 2017).…”

From Oversight to Autonomy

“…As I have described elsewhere (Allison 2016), there was tension within the league between a “business” model of success through media and corporate partnerships and a “cause” model of success stressing grassroots community outreach to fans, and particularly to girls and women. Tensions between these contrasting models at the Momentum prior to the 2011 season were low as the team’s downsizing did not impact corporate sponsor or community outreach efforts, which were dually incorporated into work practices.…”

Mobilising gender equality: A discourse analysis of bids to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™

“…With regard to football, conversely, women and gender have been studied extensively. Much of the literature focuses on histories of resilience and repression (Brus and Trangbaek, 2003;Cox and Pringle, 2012;Cox and Thompson, 2003;McGowan and Downes, 2018;Williams, 2003Williams, , 2006, the increasing professionalisation of the women's game and the consequences (Allison, 2016(Allison, , 2018Dunn and Welford, 2017;Williams, 2013;Woodhouse et al, 2019) and on sexism and misogyny within football structures (Caudwell, 2017;Knijnik, 2012;Scraton et al, 1999;Woodward, 2017). Because this article studies how gender discourses are used in the bid books, the primary focus of analysis is on the ways in which gender is mobilised as part of the bidding nations' rhetorical sales pitches.…”