FEED Issue 26 Web

23 GENIUS INTERVIEW Bex Smith

ON THE BALL Bringing the characters and

stories of women’s football to a wider audience is helping shift perception and uptake of the sport

white – what’s your reach? What’s your engagement? We didn't want to compare it to men’s football because you’re not going to get those same numbers. Instead, we created our own metrics. We wanted to increase visibility, we wanted to change perception and we wanted to accelerate acceptance. So we asked questions about women’s football. At the end, we actually doubled the brand awareness of COPA90 and we doubled the number of people that now say they are women’s football fans and will be willing to recommend it to other friends, and recommend COPA90 as a place to get women’s football content. So it’s pretty cool that we shifted the needle in terms of brand awareness and brand perception not only for our own brand, but also for the sport. FEED: Have you noticed that different countries have different responses to women’s football? BEX SMITH: It’s a global game. Having been here in the UK for almost two years, when people have a dismissive attitude

toward women’s football, I cringe. In the UK, women’s football was banned by the FA for 50 years; the ban was only lifted in 1971. Whereas in America, when I was growing up, you could always play. There were all different levels of club, so the brand of women’s football in the US is so different from the UK, or in South America, where there are very strong social and cultural barriers for women. So you have these different cultural and social barriers in all different parts of the world. The biggest swing in momentum is in the UK and in the US. Those are the two markets that we started with and doubled down on, but we’re not ignoring the rest of the world. When players or stories are coming in from South America, from Asia, from Africa, we want to shine a light on all of it. FEED: What are some of the big things that can be done to change perceptions of women’s football? BEX SMITH: First, there have to be role models. There has to be representation wherever you consume content or you

educate yourself. When I was growing up, in 1999 the US women’s national team won the World Cup. We were at the Rose Bowl for that final match with 92,000 people watching the women’s national team win. For me, I never questioned that I could be a pro footballer. It was very, very normal. Whereas in the UK in 1971, girls weren’t playing, so they genuinely didn’t think that they could – well, they couldn’t actually. Second, there has to be the support and infrastructure for girls to make it to that level. You have to invest. It’s a vicious cycle when you say, well, girls don’t want to play football. They don’t want to play because they don't see anyone else playing. And when they do play, they’re the only girl and that’s an uncomfortable place. If you’re not willing to invest in this infrastructure to create those environments for girls, then it doesn’t matter what they think, they’re never going to be able to play. It really isn’t about football. It’s about what football can bring and how it breaks down barriers and shifts conversations that so desperately need to take place. We need more support with things that bring people together and build communities.

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