The Business of Women's Football Download

A snapshot of the big deals that have happened across the women's game - November 2025

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Welcome to the second edition of a new monthly newsletter from The Cutback.

The Business of Women’s Football Download will tell you about all the big deals and headline moments from the previous month, including media rights, sponsorship and more.

In this month’s issue: More countries join 2031 WWC bid, World Sevens confirms new participants, another club takeover, Legends and the Denver Summit, Lidl and Uefa.

Concacaf quartet lines up for 2031 Women’s World Cup

Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica have joined the United States’ bid to stage the 2031 Fifa Women’s World Cup, in a move confirmed by the federations on 20 October.

The expanded 2031 tournament will take the Women’s World Cup to 48 teams and a total of 104 matches, mirroring the commercial logic of the 2026 men’s tournament by creating substantially more inventory for broadcasters and sponsors.

An official bid book will be submitted by the respective federations this month before a final decision is made at the Fifa Congress in April next year. If confirmed, it would be the first Women’s World Cup on US soil since the hurriedly rerouted 2003 edition, when the event was moved from China to the US because of Sars, and only the second time the tournament has anchored itself in North America since the landmark 1999 staging. Mexico, Jamaica and Costa Rica would all stage Women’s World Cup matches for the first time.

The Americas are now guaranteed back-to-back tournaments, with Brazil already awarded the 2027 edition, signalling where Fifa believes near-term commercial growth will come from in the women’s game.

The next two World Cups will be an easier sell for Fifa after the 2023 tournament in Australia and New Zealand fell short of commercial expectations, largely because of the awkward time zone. Hitting Brazil, the US and Mexico across 2027 and 2031 will ensure Fifa makes up for that, as both markets will yield plenty of broadcast cash at a time when Fifa is openly chasing total income of around $1bn from future Women’s World Cups.

After 2027 and 2031, the UK home nations are sitting as the only “valid” bidder for 2035.

World Sevens Football confirms December 2025 participants

The NWSL’s Kansas City Current and San Diego Wave will headline the women’s World Sevens Football (W7F) tournament in Fort Lauderdale, US, from 5 to 7 December. They join confirmed entrants Club América, Tigres, Flamengo, Deportivo Cali and Canadian start-up AFC Toronto in the eight-team, seven-a-side event with a $5m prize pool. One slot is yet to be allocated.

Organisers of W7F would love to have a best-on-best field of clubs from around the world but continue to be hampered by a split club season across Europe and the Americas, forcing them to run separate European and American windows rather than a single top-tier tournament.

The tournament’s first edition in Estoril in May proved that the concept can attract tier-one European clubs, but its timing immediately before the Uefa Women’s Champions League final somewhat undermined the hype.

Calendar issues aside, the tournament is an attractive prospect for clubs looking to make some extra cash. A single win in Estoril was worth close to four times the prize money for an FA Cup final win, and the series’ US-backed owners have committed to a $100m buildout over five years – a big reason why clubs are prepared to navigate travel and calendar complications to make it work.

The small-sided format has also been a big factor for clubs (and club executives) that are desperate to keep up with the kids. A wave of influencer-riddled, small-sided tournaments such as the King’s League and the Baller League has generated hype among sports-industry executives in much the same way as esports and the metaverse did before them, attracting them like moths to a bonfire.

By contrast, W7F offers high-quality football played by professionals, which is undoubtedly a good thing.

Montpellier Féminines the latest to become an MCO outpost

Crux Football, the women’s multi-club platform led by former New Zealand international and ex-Fifa executive Bex Smith, has completed its first deal by taking 100% control of Montpellier HSC Féminines and installing local executive Paul Bouffard as president.

Crux’s investor list includes former USWNT captain Julie Foudy, ex-Netflix vice-president Cindy Holland and StatsBomb owner Ted Knutson, showing how women’s football is starting to attract capital from data, media and US sport – and not just men’s club owners looking for bolt-ons.

The deal places Crux alongside Mercury 13, the group that has pledged $100m to acquire women’s clubs in Europe and Latin America, starting with Como Women in Italy and, more recently, a carve-out of Bristol City Women in England.

The investment thesis is consistent across all of these groups: entry prices are still low relative to the upside in media rights, sponsor demand and eventual exits, but the growth curve is not going to be linear.

That was underlined at the Sportel Monaco media conference when Danny Townsend, chief executive of Saudi sports investment arm Surj, warned that women’s football properties will “take time” to deliver the commercial returns owners are modelling, adding: “If the valuations keep going up at a faster rate than the economics around them, then it’s going to be challenging.”

UWCL rights stitched together in streamlined global package

Uefa and its club joint venture, UC3, have leaned on a small group of broadcasters for the 2025–30 Uefa Women’s Champions League rights cycle.

Disney has expanded its remit to carry the competition across the Caribbean, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and New Zealand, while beIN Sports will show games across its active territories in the Asia-Pacific region in a two-season deal. Elsewhere, streaming platform FanCode – owned by fantasy gaming platform Dream11 – will show matches in India.

For Uefa and its commercial sales agent, Two Circles, keeping its circle of UWCL broadcasters small means a lot less work to do and a lot less money spent on sales, contracts, production and signal delivery – a significant expense for the men’s Champions League.

Legends to commercialise Denver Summit; Reign fill front-of-shirt

NWSL expansion team Denver Summit FC has appointed agency Legends Global to sell its sponsorship inventory ahead of its 2026 debut, tasking the agency with everything from shirt deals to naming rights for a planned 14,500-seat stadium.

With the club already having taken more than 15,000 season-ticket deposits and having paid the league’s record $110m expansion fee, Summit ownership want a best-in-class sales engine in place well before the season.

At the same time, Seattle Reign ended its spell without a front-of-kit sponsor by signing a multi-year deal with Seattle-based pet insurance company Trupanion, which debuted on 10 October.

The Reign have invited fans to slap the insurance logo on their existing brandless shirts, free of charge, because nothing says fandom like voluntarily defacing something you bought for $100.

Betano builds South American women’s presence ahead of 2027

Greece-based sportsbook Betano has added Conmebol’s new Liga de Naciones Femenina to an already busy South American sponsorship portfolio, becoming an official sponsor of the national-team competition that will double as a qualifying pathway for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

The deal continues the betting brand’s strategy of aligning with international women’s football in South America after its earlier agreement to sponsor the Copa América Femenina 2025.

Lidl doubles down on Uefa women’s national-team rights

Lidl has renewed and expanded its relationship with Uefa to stay on as a partner of women’s national-team football through to 2030. Its renewed deal covers the Women’s Euro 2029, the 2025, 2027 and 2029 editions of the Women’s Nations League, and all European Qualifiers over that period.

Lidl is thought to have been happy with the results of its Euro 2025 programme, and has now locked in visibility around the entire next cycle as the property’s media reach grows.