Women’s football is more captivating to watch than men’s according to new scientific analysis.
The female game was catapulted into the limelight last summer when England’s Lionesses captured the hearts of the nation with their title-winning European Championship campaign, which set new records for viewing figures.
Some 27.4 million people tuned into the championship, with England’s win over Germany in the final at a sold-out Wembley drawing a peak BBC One live audience of 17.4 million, making it the most-watched women’s football match in the UK ever.
As the Lionesses look to back up their Euros success with another piece of silverware at the Women’s World Cup, which is being held across Australia and New Zealand, new data has emerged to suggest why women’s football is the perfect spectator sport.
Swedish sports company Spiideo explored the key differences between the men’s and women’s game by comparing data from last year’s women’s Euros in England and the men’s World Cup in Qatar.
It found that women are less risk averse with their passing and shooting, which results in more goals being scored. On average, passes in matches at the women’s Euros moved teams forward by 3.7 metres, compared to just 2.5 metres in the men’s World Cup.
Using an expected pass model, the average pass in a men’s match had a risk factor of 21 per cent, whereas the average pass in a women’s match had a 23 per cent risk factor. Women’s matches also had a greater thrill factor as they were 30 per cent less likely to end in a draw.
‘It’s almost like the men are playing a game of chess’
“It’s almost like the men are playing a game of chess and the women are playing something a bit more interesting than chess,” said Matthew Penn, a statistics expert from the University of Oxford who led the comparative analysis.
“We found the women’s game to be a much more free-flowing game. It was a lot more attack-based with a lot more changes in possession and end-to-end football.
“That was in contrast to the men’s game which can be very slow and tactical, where everyone is scared of conceding possession. Particularly during a World Cup, I know I’ve suffered through quite a lot of matches.”
The data also revealed that women’s football has a far more fluid, direct and attacking nature with less injury stoppages. Men’s football, by contrast, is more stop-start, with the data revealing that there were 27.7 fouls per match compared to only 20.1 in each women’s game.
“Everyone can remember the mountains of stoppage time that made us all late for meetings during last year’s World Cup,” said Penn, who also works as a data analyst for Oxford United and Oxford City football clubs. “Fewer fouls in the women’s game makes it much more appealing in that sense.”
Recent figures from the Women’s Sports Trust show that women’s football is attracting a unique audience. Eight million people watched the women’s Euros, but did not watch the men’s World Cup, and the Women’s Super League has been the driving force behind a 131 per cent rise in women’s sport viewing in 2022.
The Lionesses are among the favourites to win this year’s World Cup, along with defending champions US, who are targeting an unprecedented third consecutive title. Penn has backed the US to go all the way after compiling a prediction model based on statistics of the team’s performances at previous World Cups.
“I’m a lot more excited for the Women’s World Cup having sifted through this data and hopefully other people can be too,” he said.
The Lionesses kick off their World Cup campaign against Haiti on Saturday.
