The women's football chief says the move to WSL YouTube will increase the game's reach

Nikki Doucet, the CEO of England’s professional women’s game, says moving the Women’s Super League (WSL) and Championship streaming platform to YouTube will increase the game’s reach.

Doucet also confirmed that there is a “long-term” timeframe to repay the £20 million ($25.2 million) loan provided by the Premier League to Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL, formerly NewCo), saying that her job was to find more owners like Michele Kang of London City Lionesses to invest in clubs and generate income.

The WSL and Championship YouTube channels have replaced the FA Player as the division’s main streaming service for the 2024-2025 season, with all non-televised WSL matches and selected Championship games available worldwide on the platform viewed.

The WSL’s broadcast contract was due to expire at the end of last season and was extended for another year by the BBC and Sky Sports in April. Doucet said the move to YouTube could help underline the value of both competitions when media rights are retendered next year.

“When we come to market, we will pick up both the WSL and the Championship (broadcast rights),” Doucet said.

“We had 55,000 people watch the match (London City Lionesses vs Newcastle United) (on YouTube on Sunday). If you think about that versus the FA Player. I think the most ever on the FA Player last year was 4,500.

“So our job is to make sure that we get the widest reach possible, that we bring up the championship in the right way and that we focus on it. From a marketing and commercial perspective, we are carefully looking at what we can do for the championship.

“The more value we can get there, the better for everyone and for the WSL. The more reach we can get with the championship, putting them on YouTube, bringing in more people, telling more stories and using our channels in the right way.

“We are investing in the YouTube channel to ensure we get views and can reference them appropriately. And over time we build that up to have more data to be able to show that these are the views, this is the engagement, this is the audience, this is the reach. And then we have the opportunity to go back to the market and look again at where we can maximize value at those points.

“Our media rights run for 25-26 years, and we will look at both properties.”

Doucet was appointed CEO of WPLL (The Football Association – Women’s Pro Game/Nina Farooqi) in November

Baroness Sue Campbell, the Football Association’s (FA) outgoing director of women’s football, said last year that the governing body was exploring whether the women’s match could be exempt from the 3pm television blackout to help a captive audience attract.

Under Article 48 of UEFA’s statutes, the FA is preventing matches from being broadcast in Britain on Saturdays between 2.45pm and 5.15pm to protect stadium visitors. Doucet added while they had explored possible changes to the 3 p.m. blackout, “at this time this is not an option.”

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Premier League chief executive Richard Masters told a government committee in January that Premier League clubs had agreed a loan to WPLL. This was for £20 million ($25.2 million) and was expected to be interest-free and only repayable when annual turnover reached £100 million.

“Based on the size of the company, that is the right amount of capital today,” Doucet explains. “It’s a loan. We have to pay it back at some point.

“It is a long-term loan on favorable terms. It’s interest-free, which is super positive, and it’s part of that partnership agreement. So we have to meet certain revenue thresholds to pay it off, or there is a time frame, but it’s a longer term so we have room to grow.”

In terms of generating revenue and attracting investors, Doucet emphasized the importance of a long-term vision and highlighted the example of American businesswoman Kang after her takeover of London City Lionesses in December.

The investment from the owner of Washington Spirit and Lyon Feminin resulted in a busy summer period for the Championship side, which included Swedish international Kosovo Asllani and young Sheffield United forward Isobel Goodwin. The club has also purchased a new training facility and is in the process of renovating it.

“Investing in the women’s game today, based on where we are in the company’s maturity stage, is a different kind of capital and risk profile than investing in the men’s game today,” Doucet added.

“We need to find investors here who believe in the concept of community purpose, of a growth story that is built on future business figures, but that has the ability to invest before revenue. Our biggest challenge is a revenue challenge, not necessarily a cost challenge.

“To be a professional club and provide the right infrastructure costs money. That’s someone like Michelle Kang or some of the bigger clubs at the moment, their owners are investing, they believe in that future. They say, we understand this is a ten-year journey. This is not like an immediate return of two or three years.

“And our job right now is to maximize value at every point in the growth trajectory. The market will dictate what we can extract and what we can maximize from a value perspective. And it’s our job to be obsessed with that every day.”