What a fantastic moment for women’s sport in the UK we’re living through right now. The Lionesses securing consecutive European Championships has created huge excitement and momentum – as well as a bit of extra pressure – for the Red Roses as they prepare to begin the campaign to win the Women’s Rugby World Cup in their own back yard this month.
The World Cup in England is a massive opportunity for women’s rugby in the country to improve, grow and get more people watching. It would be such an awesome story if the Lionesses and the Red Roses won their respective major international tournaments this year. And the commercial opportunities off the back of that are unprecedented.
It would also be a massive shot in the arm for the first British and Irish Lions Women’s tour in two years’ time. If England win the World Cup off the back of the Lionesses’ success it would be a wonderful chance to strike while the iron is hot, promote the Lions Women’s tour and get a load of sign-ups on board by Christmas.
The Red Army may have invaded Australia for the men’s tour, which concludes in Sydney on Saturday, but do we think the Lions community will travel en masse to watch the women in 2027? I don’t think we can take that for granted.
What could help the Lions Women attract fans is that they don’t necessarily have to follow the same playbook as the men’s tours. Could the trip be slightly longer, for instance, so that the schedule isn’t as jam-packed?
I’m down in Australia now and spoke to Finn Russell and others who raved about the tour but said they had been travelling a lot, upping sticks every three days. Even aside from the impact on players, that’s a major logistical challenge.
Lions Women’s tour should go off beaten track
Does the whole series have to be in New Zealand, or could they make it a five-match series with opening Tests against the Black Ferns in places like Hong Kong and Singapore?
I get that there’ll be big pressure on officials in New Zealand to cash in as much as they can. Ministers for New South Wales have been revelling in the fact that this men’s Lions tour has been the most commercially successful of all time. The revenues are enormous.
But I do think the Lions Women’s tour ought to be done differently. Don’t just stick to the same three territories the men visit on rotation; keep New Zealand but also go to France and one other country which reflects where women’s rugby is thriving.
This is a big commercial opportunity for the Lions as a whole. With two tours and opportunities for activating partnerships every two years instead of four, there should be plenty of scope for generating even more revenue from one of sport’s most valuable brands.
But let’s be blunt: the Red Roses really need to do their bit and win the Women’s Rugby World Cup. If they do that, you get more eyeballs on the game, more sponsors want to support a product associated with success and the rest of the story writes itself.
Former England Sevens Captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance, experts in leadership development behavioural change and executive coaching support. Follow Ollie on Twitter and on LinkedIn @OlliePhillips11