There are no winners in the Women’s World Cup broadcast fiasco, only losers

If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If a World Cup kicks off on the other side of the world but no one can watch it, does it really happen?

We are 43 days out from the Women’s World Cup starting in Australia and New Zealand but, with Fifa threatening a blackout because of low offers for the broadcast rights from the biggest European footballing countries, you wouldn’t know it. There are no adverts, no references to coverage and there is no buildup. Instead, prospective viewers and existing fans in those countries have been left in limbo.

How on earth did we get here? The Fifa-backed official Women’s World Cup began in 1991 after decades of unofficial events and demands for the world governing body to get behind the women’s game. Even that tournament, while it was run by Fifa for the first time, was held at arm’s length and called the “1st Fifa World Championship for Women’s Football for the M&M’s Cup”, to avoid any risk of it tarnishing the World Cup branding.

Since then, commercial and broadcast rights for the showpiece tournament, which failed to embarrass and thus was bestowed with the more traditional branding to become the “Women’s World Cup” for the 1995 edition, have been bundled and sold as part of the deals for the rights of the men’s World Cups. Except it has not been equal billing as value has not been attributed to the women’s edition. Instead, it has been an add-on, a freebie thrown in to make the huge sums thrown at the men’s edition more palatable. It feels like a lot of money to be spending? Well, broadcasters, you’re getting the women’s too! What a bargain.

There has been little effort to gauge the value of the tournament in its own right, which has held back women’s football. From the