Watching Herstory
How have the Aussies kept fans glued to the action?
Last week, Australia boasted two new attendance records for women’s sports. The first coming Monday, with 76,798 fans turning out on a week night to cheer the Matilidas at their last friendly ahead of the Olympics. The second on Thursday, when a soggy sell out crowd of over 25,000 turned up Sydney to witness the Queensland Maroons clinched a last gasp win. A result that now makes full use of the first ever Origin decider played later this month.
This happened despite the holy trinity of factors we are told should be the reason folks don’t turn up - it’s women’s sport, it’s a school night and the weather is atrocious. Yet there they were, loving being a part of the moment.
I look upon these scenes and to be completely honest with you, I am jealous. It’s wonderful to see such images, so close to home, showing us what is possible. But it leaves a bitter taste, knowing that are own magic moments here in Aotearoa have been fleeting.
I took to Tiktok (yes I’m 35 years old and on Tiktok) to ask the Tilly’s fans, particularly those scooped up in the World Cup hype last year, what has made their kick ons so successful. It’s one thing to pull people in, quite another to have them stick around. So what are the Aussies doing differently? Although entirely unscientific, at the time of writing this I’ve received just over 150 comments in response.
As an aside, the reach on Tiktok is what Twitter used to feel like. It has that fleeting energy, where conversations fly past and you have to grab on in the moment in order to engage. This leads to a presence which at it’s best, feels less performative than say, Instagram. Which to my mind is the Linkedin of social media sites.
ANYWAY.
These comments ranged from funny to genuinely thoughtful. I’ve endeavoured to do a basic analysis for you and here’s what I found.
The three that stuck out as the reoccurring themes in the comments were:
1. The marketing of the team lead with promoting them as people first
2. The activity of the Matildas social media pages
3. The attempts made to highlight the national teams connection back to their clubs, whether they were local or abroad.
Already you can see overlap in these three headers. That the marketing strategy to lead with people first was highly visible in the of content on the Matildas social media pages. And that the connection back to clubs, either in the A-League or WSL, was also a content stream on their social media platforms. It was picked up and amplified by the players themselves and their clubs, which in turn further helped build bridges for new fans to discover new leagues.
"Well I discovered my fave Tilly players then followed them to their club and discovered other international players I love. Now I wake up at 3 am to watch the English league.”
There is of course going to be a bias when asking social media users, what influenced their stickiness as fans. Nevertheless it’s worth noting that as well as the teams social media pages, the players, fan generated content and the algorithm in general was identified by 20% of commentators as a key factor in their fandom.
They also spoke of the impact of the traditional media. Some pointing to a general increase in coverage of the Matildas in legacy media. While 7% attributed the success of the team in part to the documentary aired on Disney ahead of the World Cup.
To dig a little deeper, I categorised general themes into external and internal factors. Those things inside and outside of the teams control. Obviously some things, like the “negative past experiences with other sport” are outside of the teams control whereas “fan engagement at matches” is very much in their wheelhouse. Some factors were a little more murky, like people identifying the fandom as an “inclusive space”. There is a social contract in action here. Such a culture will be lead by the team and it’s brand which in turn needs to be embraced by it’s fans in order to come to life.
When slicing themes up this way, 75% of the comment section were internal factors. Perhaps unsurprisingly that’s because most of it was related to the stories and how they chose to tell them.
Fans spoke about the Matildas leveraging big names, like Sam Kerr, as the gateway and then building the connection with the roster out from there. They highlighted the team’s social media being sensitive to trends and fan appetites. A focus on 1 on 1 interviews, behind the scenes content and showcasing more of the players personalities helped build their fan base.
“Being genuine and authentic seems to win people over first before the sport. It then feels like watching a friend you know play in a match. You want to see them win! And you are more invested personally.”
I have spoken before about how women’s sport offers a relational reset for the game’s traditional image with the public. This was identified by commenters for the Tilly’s too. They spoke of having negative experiences with other sports or feeling like other codes have never attempted to connect them them.
“I realised that all this time, it’s not that I disliked sports, I just disliked men’s sports!! There’s something relatable about watching women play that makes it more enjoyable for me as a woman.”
And then of course, there were the lesbians. 7% of commenters identified themselves as members of the rainbow communities and spoke about how having visible, positive role models drew them in. Others identifying that the relationships between players added another level of intrigue to their watching experience. Diversity across the squad was highlighted by a handful of commentators and no doubt helps contribute to the feeling of inclusion within the fandom.
Commenters felt there was a general understanding that many of them were new to the team but that crucially, this wasn’t held against them. Instead they spoke about how they were welcomed both by the sport providing accessible commentary and introduction to players as well as by existing fans who didn’t display any gatekeeping tendencies.
I also took a peek at how much of the commentators feedback was tied to the context in which this groundswell has occurred. Around a third of comments were related to the timing which aligned events to allow the Matildas to capitalise on their impact. Having the team finish fourth at the Tokyo Olympics help seed legacy media coverage sparking local interest. The World Cup then coming shortly after and being spread across the nation was a leg up on say, the Rugby World Cup, which was only held in Auckland and Whangārei.
The event unfolded against a backdrop of growth across the interest in women’s sport and football in particular. Over 90,000 had turned up in Barcelona for the Women’s Champions League the year before. The same year, over 87,000 had bought tickets to watch England win the Euros. This generated a momentum coming into the tournament that the country was then primed to capture.
My pet theory is that it also helped that this explosion happened in a sport that wasn’t quite so tightly woven into the male psyche. Football does not occupy the same place in Australian men’s hearts as say Aussie Rules or Rugby League. Because of this, there is less resistance to women excelling in the space.
“I think the recent Instagram squad announcement epitomises how and why they’ve maintained engagement… Allows people to be engaged even if they don’t actively watch football but care about the team.”
The secret to the Aussies success appears to be how all the dominoes were lined up. Some were put in place by the Matildas, some the original fans, some the wider game and some by the energy of women’s sport. When the first one fell as the tournament kicked off last year, the Matildas moved quickly. They kept lining them up, one after the other, to make sure the momentum didn’t slip.
They knew who they were bringing in, where they were taking them and welcomed them on the journey. Simple as that.
With you,
Alice