Who's the right shirt sponsor for the Wellington Phoenix Women?

The Wellington Phoenix Women's team management have expressed their disappointment at not being able to secure a sponsor. However this difficulty is not unexpected for a couple of reasons:

Short notice

The new team was only announced at the start of September, only 2 months before the start of the season. Sponsors tend to view sports sponsorships in terms of multi-year relationships - one year would be the absolute minimum. Signing deals of this duration isn't typically a quick process. Also, companies don't usually have a lot of spare marketing budget sloshing around to spend on short-notice opportunities like this.

 

Audience Appeal

A sports team has to appeal to viewing audience, and WPW is a New Zealand team playing in an Australian competition which immediately narrows their sponsorship attractiveness. According to an extremely accurate and fully verifiable survey, 78% of Aussie A-League fans used the #NixOut hashtag at least once. This means Australian companies won't be interested, and New Zealand companies doing business in Australia won't want to draw attention to their Kiwiness.

Possibilities

Oppo as a global consumer brand is a great sponsor for the WP Men since they just want to raise their profile and aren't interested in parochialism. However it's unlikely a similar brand like Xiaomi can sponsor the WPW without damaging the WP relationship with Oppo. Maybe a global consumer brand from another category? Amazon and Ikea are planning to expand into New Zealand...

 

By sponsoring the WPM, Spark is both bolstering their Spark Sport brand and diluting the Sky NZ brand (I would love the Sky commentators to have to say "The Spark Wellington Phoenix"). But Spark is also signalling it has no intention whatsoever of expanding into Australia and is only interested in the New Zealand market. There may be other NZ-only businesses in a similar position who want to associate themselves with football - maybe Stirling Sports?

 

KPMG was last year's WPM sponsor. I'm not sold on B2B sponsorship in terms of actual marketing value, but for the WPW it does open the door to being sponsored by a wealthy but boring business that wants to be associated with something more exciting. In these Great Resignation times this type of sponsorship could help with recruitment and retention of young female staff.

 

Another possibility is a local Wellington business that didn't have deep enough pockets to sponsor the WPM and may be interested in a cheaper option. I don't know who that might be.

 

Personally what I would like to see are sponsors that say "We're Kiwi and we're awesome". A double bill of Rocket Lab and Weta Workshop would get it right up 'em.

The Expanded Club World Cup

 I think club competitions are important because of their ability to generate sustained grassroots support. Sports associations that rely too heavily on national and federational teams tend to be "hollowed out" and have difficulty maintaining a lasting following.

 

In a covid-free parallel universe, 2022 was set to be a big step in the right direction for football with an expanded 24-team Club World Cup. Unfortunately it has been postponed to at least 2023. In the meantime, the competition will follow the same format as in previous years - a knockout of the six confederation champions.

 

I'm totally supportive of an expanded competition. Why? Some reasons follow.

 

A true global club champion

 

France is genuinely considered the world champion based on its performances in the 2018 World Cup. Don't we want to know which club is the world's greatest, too?

 

We do have a Club World Cup already, but unfortunately it's not a prestigious competition. The 2020 edition pitted Bayern Munich (the UEFA Champions League champion and unofficial world #1) against the five other confederation champions, including clubs such as Auckland City (#136) and Al-Duhail (#114). For Bayern the competition was merely an exercise in bucket list completion and proved nothing in terms of accomplishment.

 

A 24-team competition would represent a far more serious challenge that would be reflected in the prestige conferred on the winner.

 

Based on recent results the lineup for a 2022 Club World Cup might have been:

 

Ulsan Hyundai, Persepolis, Vissel Kobe, Al-Ahly, Kaizer Chiefs, Wydad AC, UANL, Los Angeles FC, America, Palmeiras, Santos, River Plate, Boca Juniors, Racing, Gremio, Chelsea, Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund, Porto, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Liverpool and a club from the host nation.

 

Opportunities for talent from lowly ranked countries

 

Ryan Giggs had a storied career with Manchester United, earning medals for every club competition he participated in. However he never played in the World Cup. Why? Because he's from Wales - a football minnow that only ever qualified for the World Cup once, back in 1958. For players like Giggs who were unlucky enough to be born in the wrong country to parents of the wrong nationality, there is no path to global achievement and recognition. Frankly, there should be.

 

Giggs actually won a Club World Cup medal with Manchester United in 2008, but it was almost meaningless as an achievement. In the final they defeated LDU Quito (unofficial world ranking of #163).

 

For the women too please!

 

Women's club competitions are still immature in many parts of the world. Currently there is no women's Club World Cup at all. About the closest it gets is invitational tournaments like the SheBelieves Cup which are little more than exhibitions. But the pieces are starting to fall into place. In 2021 CAF joined UEFA, CONMEBOL and AFC in holding women's Champions League competitions, and CONCACAF intends starting their own tournament after the 2023 World Cup. Only the OFC has not yet announced any plans.

 

Hypothetically if everything had been in place this year, a 2022 Womens Club World Cup might have featured:

 

Tokyo Verdy Beleza, Jiangsu Suning, Incheon Red Angels, Mamelodi Sundowns, Hasaacas Ladies, Malabo Kings, Washington Spirits, Chicago Red Stars, Tigres, Chivas, Corinthians, Santa Fe, Ferroviara, Nacional, Kindermann, Eastern Suburbs, Barcelona, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Lyon, Manchester City, Wolfsburg and one club from the host nation.

In support of womens sport

 To me the obvious way to give womens sport a “hand up, not a hand out” is to host mixed gender competitions – particularly at the highest level. It worked a treat in tennis where women and men compete in parallel at the same Grand Slam tournaments. The resultant organic growth in fan following for women’s tennis has been the starting point for media attention, viable sporting career paths (not just for players but also coaching, administration, fitness, media etc), large committed player base and everything else needed for a sustainable professional sport ecosystem. Sure, some young women may initially wilt under the sudden spotlight of massive media attention, but others will seize their opportunity and take flight.

 

A mixed gender FIFA World Cup would rapidly and dramatically raise the profile of women’s football. Cost and logistics have been thrown up as obstacles, but how significant are they really? FIFA is already planning sprawling, continent-wide World Cups for the future (and seems intent on diluting the elite status of the competition in the process by adding ever more men’s teams). The real obstacles are conservatism and short-term greed.

 

Like many first world males, my view on gender equality was that we aren’t quite there yet but we’re generally going in the right direction apart from some occasional backsliding. This view was utterly shattered when my daughter started showing signs of enjoying and having an aptitude for sport. It didn’t take much research to find that of the wide range of sports providing men with financially self-sustaining careers, only tennis and golf were reliably viable options for women. I’m embarrassed to admit that somehow this yawning gulf of gender disparity eluded my notice until there was a possibility it would affect a member of my family.

 

From there it didn’t take long to become aware of online commentary to the effect that women’s sport is a joke, they don’t have the physique to compete and nobody’s interested because of the low level of performance and skill on display. Often online seems to be a place where everyone’s trying to be a shock jock, but you have to assume that at least some of that sentiment is genuine and worth responding to. So here goes:

 

It’s true that most of the records for physical feats are held by men (ultramarathon and freediving among the few exceptions). For some, this is what sport is all about – running the fastest, jumping the highest, throwing the furthest – and those people can get everything they need from the Guinness Book of Records and track & field (which ironically is a big promoter of women’s sport thanks to its joint competitions). But for the rest of us, record breaking is of relatively fleeting interest compared to oppositional sports where humans compete with all the resources they can bring to bear – physicality, skill, instinct, determination, adaptability, deception and brainpower. Two committed opponents contesting a finely balanced game is one of the most reliably entertaining forms of reality TV in existence. Doesn’t male domination of sport make this a more one-dimensional experience for everyone?

 

Balance is crucial to the drama of sport. In balanced sports we often see an entertaining “arms race” where teams and players continually strive to find new and improved ways to counter each other. Balance is also why elite level women and men don’t generally participate together in highly physical sports – there is little entertainment in lopsided competition. But there is no reason why women-only competitions should be any less competitive and entertaining, and they can actually be more interesting than men’s sport. Some male tennis players have excessively powerful serves that cause an imbalance between attack and defence, with a large percentage of points only involving one hit of the ball. Female tennis players generally aren’t as able to dominate with the serve, resulting in a more engrossing contest.

 

Sport can give us many gifts – goals and direction, building of character, camaraderie, health, and maybe even income. But the greatest gift of all is the chance to live life with heightened meaning through high-stakes competition in front of large, passionate audiences. Are there really any worthwhile reasons to deny women the opportunity to share in these experiences?

Wellington Phoenix Women - The Final Signing

Edit 26 Nov: well that theory was shot to sh** in super quick time. Lisa de Vanna just signed with Perth Glory.

I did a brute force search of all available forwards with ALW experience yet to re-sign and came up with 9 as follows:

Rosie Sutton, Sharn Freier, Nickoletta Flannery, Sasha Grove, Gabe Marzano, Evelyn Chronis, Marianna Tabain, Katarina Jukic, Leena Khamis

• Khamis has the most impressive resume with 10+ professional seasons and 25 appearances for the Matildas including 5 goals.
• Also with 10+ professional seasons but limited international experience are Sutton, Tabain and Jukic.
  
• Marzano and Flannery have 5+ seasons each.
• Freier, Grove and Chronis don't have the experience the WPW will be looking for
  

 Sooo...probably Khamis then?

 

Edit 24 Nov: I am soooo suspicious.

Gemma Lewis is turning out to be a very sneaky coach. She's been extremely cautious about showing her hand in pre-season warmup games, and now she's waiting until the last moment to announce her final Aussie selection.

I'm now leaning toward Lisa de Vanna. Her Wikipedia entry says "In September 2021, De Vanna retired from football", which effectively meant she was not re-signing to Melbourne Victory. The new WPW team was also announced in September, so I find the timing of events extremely interesting.

 

De Vanna was dropped from the Matildas squad in June, meaning she missed out on the Olympics. This was a big call - despite being 36 at the time and theoretically in the twilight of her career, she was still in great form.  The Victory took the W-League 2020-21 title with her help and she earned individual recognition for Goal of the Season and inclusion in Team of the Year. De Vanna has been pretty vocal about her disappointment at being dropped. She also went public with accusations of historic abuse in the W-League and has been unhappy with the lack of support from Football Australia.

 

So I'm really hoping she wants to send the national organisation a big f*** you by kicking some Aussie ass for the WPW in the ALW. A Phoenix-like rebirth indeed! It's exactly the kind of move you would expect from de Vanna who has a track record of relishing challenges, having played for over 20 different clubs in her career and taken leadership roles in young, unproven squads.

With 19 signings so far, the roster for the very first season of the Wellington Phoenix Women is almost complete. They need one more player to comply with the FFA eligibility requirements.

Who will it be? How close can I get to the name with just guesswork and google? Without even watching anyone play?

WPW need a forward, must choose an Aussie, want experience and don't have a hope of poaching internationally or from the other ALW sides at this late hour. All that's left are former ALW players, ideally recently demoted to the state leagues and not yet totally out of touch with the big time. The pool is small - in the past 2 years, out of 21 players dropped there were only 5 forwards.

 

Meleri Mullan already got herself back up by re-signing with Adelaide United.

 

Madelyn Whittall has ghosted the football world for the past year, I'm guessing she's retired.

 

Liana Cook only got on the field 4 times for the Glory - probably not the level of experience WPW is looking for.

 

Adriana Jones has played both ALW and overseas, was top scorer for her side this season and is giving back to the game by participating in a global FIFPRO player mental health initiative. Doesn't she sound like an awesome caring wise head for our team of mostly debutantes? On the other hand...New Lambton also came dead last in the Northern NSW Premier League, and Jones was quoted as saying pro football is brutal and she doesn't want to uproot herself from her beloved Newcastle community any more. What a head case...(joking, don't cancel me!!) Wollongong is only just down the road if she changed her mind and wanted to give it another crack.

 

But my virtual money is on Abbey Lloyd who had two seasons with the Roar going back to 2017 and was also a lynchpin this season for the Western Pride in the Queensland state league.