53% adult urban Indians prefer watching women’s sports: YouGov Study

As per a latest YouGov Global Study, 53% of adult urban Indians have cited a preference for watching women's sports.

YouGov's latest Global Study

Do sports fans care about their leagues and stars espousing social issues? Do off-field initiatives by sports organizations translate into a more passionate and committed fanbase? Can ‘doing good’ help sports brands elevate their stature in a highly cluttered and competitive 21st century globalized ‘single market’?

These pressing questions and many more were answered in a worldwide study recently conducted by YouGov, titled ‘Global Sports 2022: Uncovering the Socially Responsible Sports Fan.'

The findings are positive and striking.

It turns out that there is a direct correlation between sporting leagues, athletes and sponsors taking a stand on issues such as social justice, climate change and gender equality, and the support they receive from their fans.

Sports fans care more about social issues

The study was conducted across 51 countries spanning the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), the Americas and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions.

Speaking about the significance of the findings, YouGov Sport’s India MD Mr Joseph Eapen said:

“Sports fans are a passionate group who have strong opinions on sport in general and the topics that impact on both the world at large and then on sports specifically. As we become more aware of such agendas as sustainability and diversity & inclusion, so our attitudes to and expectations of the sports organisations we watch and follow also change.”

“The key challenge was agreeing on the overall topic that we wanted to communicate and then finding both the data and narrative to bring this to life. The overarching subject is very broad and as you can see in the paper, has multiple facets. This made it a complex report to research, write and produce,” Mr Eapen said.

Adult Urban Indians prefer watching women’s sports

Tellingly, India leads the pack when it comes to a preference for watching women’s sports over men’s (53%, as against just 12% of adults in Britain).

These findings are reflective of the general awareness around Indian female athletes’ historically superior success in Olympics & other international events, feels Mr Eapen.

Specifically among football fans in India, the country was also miles ahead when it came to ‘being passionate about women’s football and FIFA Women’s World Cup’, scoring an impressive 58% net agreement with this statement, well above the 38% global average. While YouGov hasn’t offered any reasoning for this finding, this could be in direct anticipation of India hosting the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup later this year.

Study restricted by age and geography

That said, the above survey was restricted to urban-based adult respondents.

“It is likely that this group have more access to channels through which they can engage with sports of all sorts. As the report also shows, Indian sports fans are big users of social media and use influencers as a point of reference. It is likely therefore that a lot of the attitude towards women’s sport has been formed through these channels,” Mr Eapen points out.

Another note of seeming caution is that while the 53% preference to watch women’s sports is impressive, it appears to be a drop off from the 59% reported in YouGov’s own earlier ‘Women in Sport Report 2021’.

Expect more India-focused findings in the future

While the “process and methodology for conducting research is very consistent across all genres” says Mr Eapen, the study remains largely focused on four developed Western markets (US, UK, Germany & Australia). This is especially the case in dection 2 of the report, which deals with ‘What sports fans expect from sports organizations’- in the context of taking a lead on social issues.

“As our data sets grow in emerging markets it will certainly enable us to comment more and more often on the opinions and attitudes of fans in those markets,” Mr Eapen promises.