What is the secret to Arsenal's WSL crowd success?

Arsenal broke the WSL crowd record three times in 2023-24 Arsenal's attendances are the envy of women's football – not just in England, or Europe, but around the world. So successful have they been at building their fanbase over the last four years, they have now announced that all their Women's Super League gameswill be held at the 60,704-capacity Emirates Stadiumfrom next season. To put their attendances into context, their average last season of nearly 29,000 is more than three times the team with the second highest average – Chelsea, who are the dominant force in the WSL. So what is Arsenal's secret? England captain and Arsenal defender Leah Williamson, minutes after leading the Lionesses to Euro 2022 success, made a rallying call live on the BBC: "The legacy of this tournament is a change in society. We have brought people together, brought people to games. We want people at WSL games." And Arsenal fans listened. The club had already planned to trial games at the Emirates Stadium and eight weeks after that final at Wembley they hosted Tottenham, setting a new WSL record with 47,367 fans in attendance. But it was not just capitalising on momentum from the Euros that helped Arsenal achieve that feat – and then do it again and again. Other WSL clubs have not seen the sustained growth that Arsenal have managed. In December 2021, Arsenal appointed Julie Slot as their new chief commercial officer to oversee marketing, among other responsibilities. She highlights three main factors as contributing to the club's success: Having 38 years of building a women's team and already having a core group of loyal supporters Capitalising on the success of the Euros, with key Lionesses such as Williamson part of the Arsenal team Identifying the different audiences interested in coming to watch women's football and really focusing their digital, radio and outdoor marketing on those key areas Premier League football clubs are not used to having to work hard to try and market tickets – Arsenal's men's team have long been selling out the Emirates Stadium. Slot brought her experience from working in horse racing and applied it to football. "We've used a lot of test and learn marketing techniques around things I brought from racing," she says. "With horse racing you work hard to sell every ticket, and it's more of an entertainment experience rather than a pure sports experience." One of those adopted from horse racing was tiered pricing - early-bird, general sale, and last chance – which rewards loyal supporters. To encourage fans to come back, rather than just attend a one-off game, they also introduced packages allowing fans to buy tickets for all the games being held at the Emirates at a discounted rate. Radio advertising was something else they tested out which Arsenal had never done before, but Slot says it has been unexpectedly fruitful, targeting parents who have it on in the background while they are looking after their kids and thinking about what they are going to do over the next few weeks. "It's such fun marketing women's football," she adds. "I'm a woman and I love sport, but women's football allows you to be really creative and really ambitious. "Because we've got a stadium to sell, and we're not ultimately selling out for every game, we're thinking about who are all the communities we can reach and what are the campaigns that we can do with them, because we've got a lot of tickets to sell. "So that goes back to that real ability to test and learn. As a marketer, there's nothing better than testing something and seeing what works, and what doesn't work." And key to everything has been the data they have gathered about the different people who come to their women's games: New fans:In 2022-23, 61% of purchasers had never attended the Emirates Stadium before Younger fans:In 2023-24, 49% of purchasers were under 35 – up from 46% in 22-23 More female fans:Arsenal had a higher proportion of female purchasers than males for the first season since hosting regular games at the Emirates in 2023-24 – increasing to 57% from 48% in 2022-23 & 47% in 2021-22. By comparison, a men's game would be around 15% female purchasers Supporters of both the men's and women's teams:Around 25% of the audience attending women's matches at the Emirates purchase tickets for men's games Children:The % of under 18s at games in 2024-25 is around 5%, up from 2% in 2022-23, and 3% in 2023-24 (although Arsenal have limited data) More girls:Around three-quarters of under 18s attending are female Another major aspect of their strategy is around pricing. Traditionally women's football clubs would sometimes give away tickets to boost attendances – but then some of the recipients wouldn't bother turning up. Slot was adamant from the moment she joined that Arsenal would not be giving away tickets. "It's a really important positioning for the club because this is a professional football game and they are professional athletes and it's a product we're putting on," she says. Yet affordability is key to attracting new fans, and can partly explain why such a large proportion of supporters going to WSL games are experiencing the Emirates Stadium for the first time. Next season, early bird tickets will range from £13.50 to £18 for a standard adult ticket – significantly cheaper than to watch their male counterparts. "Lots of people want an entertainment experience and, in London, finding that for a group of you is quite hard at an affordable price so when we were really pushing the tickets from a price [perspective] people think 'oh, that's actually something I can afford to do'," explains Slot. Having gone from averaging nearly 3,500 in Women's Super League the season before England hosted Euro 2022, Arsenal grew that more than eight times to almost 30,000 in the space of two years. That 2023-24 league season included two complete sell-outs as some 60,000 fans packed out the Emirates, which hosted six WSL matches and saw three league attendance records set in the process. According to Slot, there are two key factors to getting a sell-out - holding matches at weekends at suitable times for families, and the opposition. With many people attending a women's football match for the first time, Slot says their context is the men's game. So although a team like Tottenham are not one of the WSL's big names, Arsenal built on their traditional rivalry, specifically targeting communities in north London. "Their perception is that Arsenal-Spurs is a really big game and we built on that," she says. The result – a record WSL attendance of 47,367 in 2022-23, a sell-out of 60,050 in 2023-24 and their highest attendance of the season of 56,784 in 2024-25. Last season they increased the number of matches to nine at the Emirates but saw their average gate fall slightly to some 29,000. Yet Slot is not perturbed. "I think we did really well last season," she says. "The thing for me, is to maintain sustainable growth. So I would rather regularly have 29,000 than have one sell-out and then lots of 10,000s. "We are building this sustainable audience." Arsenal's matches with traditional rivals Tottenham have proved popular at the Emirates Success off the pitch has not been dependent on success on it, with Arsenal having gone six years without winning the WSL title, although they did end this campaign in spectacular style by becoming European champions. The like of WSL giants Chelsea, who have been the dominant force in the WSL for the last six years must cast their eye enviously across London at the Gunners' off-pitch growth. The Blues held just three of their matches at Stamford Bridge last season compared to four the previous year. "We haven't been successful just through luck, I would say this has been a clear, strategic objective by the club," says Slot. "We used a moment (Euro 2022), but we've also been very agile in our approach." However, she is keen to share as much as she can with other WSL clubs, adding "there's a real openness in the WSL". "We all have an ambition to build the women's game and promote it and to support each other," she adds. "That's why I'm very excited about the future of women's football in this country because I see the WSL clubs as being very focused on growing women's football." Head here to get involved