When the Football Association in England launched the Women’s Super League in 2011, it was the first milestone in what sport sociologists have identified as a new age for media coverage of women’s sport, and football in particular. The success of women athletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games, along with Sport England’s subsequent This Girl Can media campaign which ran nationwide, cemented this trend.
The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is seen as a turning point. Print journalists paid a lot more attention than they had previously. And for the first time all of England’s matches were televised live, while viewership numbers across the world broke records.
