Football may not have come home with the Lionesses but their exploits at getting closer to winning the World Cup than any team from the UK in 57 years have endeared the girls to the nation.
And it’s already paying off for licensing industry with Danilo’s recently launched official England Lionesses’ calendar pre-order sales going great guns as the team return from the tournament in Australia.
The 1-0 defeat to Spain’s La Roja team in the Women’s World Cup Final on Sunday, 20 August, was watched by a peak audience of 12 million viewers on BBC One – more than the July’s men’s Wimbledon final – plus viewed 3.9m times on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport app, with ITV’s coverage taking figures to a combined peak of 14.4m.
“The Guess The Score competitions we’ve been running on our social media, in conjunction with fan company FOCO, for the World Cup has seen nearly 2,000 entries,” Danilo’s licensing director Dan Grant told sister title, PG Buzz. “This good engagement reflects the impact that the Lionesses’ success has had.
“The sales of the calendar which recently launched has seen really good performance, suggesting that people want to buy Lionesses’ merch – in the last week we’ve seen it be a top-selling calendar online.
“We’ve also had female Subbuteo cards on prominent display in Tesco for the World Cup, which shows the impact the Lionesses are having on increasing popularity for women’s football.”
And, showing how far women’s football has come in recent years, the England Lionesses’ calendar was a new entry at number three in Danilo’s 2022 sports chart following on from the girls’ success in the 2022 Euros final – which holds the record of 17.4m viewers for a women’s match – while the men’s national team offering was stuck in sixth place.
Meanwhile, the publisher’s range of six personalised England Women’s Football greeting cards is also proving popular, with goalie Mary Earps, winner of the tournament’s Golden Glove award as the best keeper of the tournament, prominent on both cards and calendar designs.
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