WOMENS SPORT BUSINESS AWARD – SUPPORTERS OF WOMEN’S SPORT

Destination Sport Group

Destination Sport Group is a specialist sports travel business based in Manchester with an ambition of setting the global standard in sports travel. Since its formation, Destination Sport Group has been keen to play a key role within the development and growth of women’s sport. As an employer, Destination Sport has a strong representation of females in the workplace including within management positions. It has a Women’s Sport Working Group which meets monthly to shape strategy and explore opportunities within women’s sport. Notable highlights across the group include delivery of travel services for a number of elite women’s clubs and national teams via Amaze and Destination Sport Travel and partnerships including front of shirt branding via Sportsbreaks.com. In Destination Sport Experiences and inspiresport, both operators experience significant demand from female travellers but are committed to growing this further including dedicated trips such as women’s only training camps and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup coach education trip

ICENI

Iceni is the UK’s only dedicated sports performance period wear brand. We are committed to
removing barriers for women and girls in sport, empowering them to feel their most confident, be it on the pitch, at the gym, or just on a rest day.

When co-founders Francesca Hansen and Vanessa Smith compared their experiences with those of their daughters, they realised that there was still no active solution to the challenges that female athletes face in sport.

We believe that girls and women deserve to train and compete with no distractions; as we grow our community, we are dedicated to finding solutions to ensure that they can focus on their performance.

Periods should not be a barrier or a deterrent for females in sport.

MatchFit

MatchFit is an independent PR agency with a deep expertise within sport. We want everyone to love sport as much as we do. This is the inspirational guiding light and mission behind our existence. This mission flows through MatchFit; our model, people, work and clients.

There is no more exciting growth story in all of sport right now than that of women’s football.
As an agency that is so deeply embedded within the game, we saw it as our responsibility to seize this generational moment in time to push the industry forward, and build on the foundations which exist to truly and sustainably grow women’s football.

This year our work has been felt across the game spanning grassroots and para PR campaigns such as ‘Let Girls Play’ for The FA, professional competitions and teams for the Women’s FA Cup and the Lionesses, as well as brand and sponsorship work for the likes of FOOTY.com and LiveScore.

We are incredibly proud that more than 35% of our PR agency output across August 2022 to July 2023 came in women’s football, and that trend is only heading in one direction.

SPORTFIVE

Working across 60 locations across five continents, SPORTFIVE builds value for Brands, Rights Holders, Athletes and Media-Platforms by creating innovative and compelling marketing partnerships that emotionally connect with audiences.

As a global business, SPORTFIVE has been active within women’s sport since the 1990s, with the marketing of the TV rights for Wimbledon. In 2020, SPORTFIVE UK wanted to take this work to new heights and set the overall development and growth of the women’s sport business as one of our main strategic objectives and have been working to develop the industry ever since.

Across 2022 and 2023, SPORTFIVE UK has helped women’s sport grow across five crucial service sectors: Commercial Partnership Brokerage, Brand Activation, Talent Services, Production Services and Media Services.

One standout project has emerged as part of this work: our involvement in the UEFA Women’s European Championships.

Arguably the most culturally defining sports event of the last decade and a seminal moment for women’s sport in England, our Commercial Sponsor Programme, packaged and sold on behalf of the Football Association, secured funding for the game, and showcased the marketing value of women’s football to premium brands, essential to its ongoing growth and professionalisation.

Women’s Premier League – ITW CATALYST

ITW played a critical role in the WPL’s inaugural season, assisting franchises such as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in obtaining the front of the jersey (Kajaria) and leading trouser leg sponsors (Vega Beauty), as well as Body Care sponsor for UP Warriorz (UPW).
*We wanted to leave a mark on the first season of a part breaking event like the WPL. With women’s sports rarely getting its due attention we made it our mission to not only contribute significantly to the success of the league but also ensure that it achieves a revolutionary growth trajectory. For us the success of the WPL was a case study on how women’s sport can be protected and promoted through sustained activity and bringing the sport into the spotlight. As an organization we believe strongly in the promotion of women’s sport, and we were keen to be a part of the inaugural season in every capacity. The partnerships we helped execute are as follows.

TOURNAMENT: WPL

FRANCHISE: Royal Challengers Bangalore
SPONSOR: Kajaria-Front of Jersey, VEGA-Leading Trouser, ZUNO-Official Partner

FRANCHISE: UP WARRIORZ
SPONSOR: Bodycare – Leading Trouser

Women’s Rugby: Red Roses World Cup, Premier Women’s Rugby, Clinique – MATTA

Since our inception in 2015, women’s sport has been a core focus of MATTA’s, from launching the Lionesses brand identity to creating a groundbreaking Ashes campaign that saw countless attendance records broken in 2023. We have continuously commercially and culturally committed to women’s sport as a business and are actively innovating our services to reflect our passion for it. We believe sport has the power to positively change the world – and women’s sport even more so.

Women’s Super League (WSL), Scottish Women’s Premier League (SWPL), Women’s Championship, and National League – Relo Metrics

Women’s Super League (WSL), Scottish Women’s Premier League (SWPL), Women’s Championship, and National League – Relo Metrics
A new initiative by Relo Metrics named the Women’s Football Collab, has attracted 13 clubs from the Women’s Super League, Scottish Championship, second-tier Women’s Championship, and a few in the third-tier National League, which isn’t yet fully professionalized.
To help European clubs capitalize on this momentum following the Lionesses’ EURO 2022 triumph, sponsorship analytics platform Relo Metrics offered some of its social media intelligence services, for free, while also facilitating the sharing of best practices.

Additionally, the teams gathered together for free collaboration, in a series of curated workshops and in-person events designed to promote greater cooperation amongst all the teams.