“If you build it, they will buy it”: exploring consumer insights of professional women’s football merchandising strategies

The professionalization and rapid growth in consumption of elite women’s football presents an increasingly lucrative market, offering football associations, clubs, apparel companies, and league organizers the potential to diversify revenue streams through merchandise sales. Drawing on consumer culture theory with a materiality lens, this research explored the availability and consumer purchasing experiences of fan clothing in professional women’s football to better inform merchandising strategies. A database was compiled of all fan clothing offered on the websites of national and professional women’s teams in Australia, England, and the USA. These data were combined with a qualitative survey of fans from these locations to explore their symbolic purchasing experiences, which were analyzed thematically. Collectively, the findings reveal a limited and inconsistent availability of fan clothing across the industry, both at national and club levels, that consistently frustrates women’s football fans and perpetuates perceptions of gender inequality. Specifically, database analysis revealed the marketplace perceived demand for low cost, V-neck t-shirts, and headwear. This was juxtaposed with the preferences of women’s football consumers identified through analysis of the fan survey, namely jerseys with good fit and size range. The lack of availability prevents consumers from engaging in a significant, symbolic part of sports consumer culture and restricts their ability to fully construct fan identities. We uniquely demonstrate the dynamic relationship between the actions of women’s football consumers, marketplace offerings, and culturally embedded meanings, and highlight the stark gap between industry perceptions and fan preferences regarding professional women’s football fan merchandise.