Bigger, better, more popular: Women's Euro 2025 set to break records

Around 1,000 fans were on hand when England played one of the very first matches of the inaugural Women's European Championship in 1984.

How things have changed.

More than half a million tickets have already been sold for the 31 matches of this year's edition of the tournament, which kicks off next week in Switzerland.

Organizers expect to break the attendance record of 575,000 set at the previous women's euros in England in 2022 when 87,000 people packed into Wembley Stadium for the final.

The popularity of women's soccer in Europe — and around the world — has accelerated in leaps and bounds in recent years. Players are becoming stronger, faster and more technically skilled, making the game more entertaining to watch.

While it hasn't yet closed the gap with men's soccer in revenue, the women's game is seeing rapid growth in investment at both the international and club level. Players who started their careers over a decade ago say the pace of change has been stunning.

''If you look at a match from five years ago, it has nothing to do with the ones being played now,'' said Barcelona's two-time Ballon d'Or winner Alexia Putellas, who made her senior debut in 2010.

The 31-year-old Spain midfielder told The Associated Press that her generation and earlier generations never thought they would be able to make a living from playing soccer when they grew up.

''For sure it's about making our sport a little more visible, so that girls can dream of being soccer players," she said. ''I think that in recent years there has been a very good evolution. In the end, we just needed people to invest in us, to help us improve, and I think that change is happening."

Club connection

Governing bodies have set up initiatives to drive the game forward, such as European soccer body UEFA's ''Unstoppable'' strategy — aimed at making football the most-played team sport for women and girls in every European country by 2030, while increasing the number of professional leagues across the continent.

A major shift has happened at the club level, as Europe's powerhouse clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea started taking women's soccer seriously.

More women's leagues across Europe have turned professional over the past decade, inspiring a new generation of female soccer players.

''In the last decade real progress happened, especially on the club side. You see real professionalization,'' Norway FA president Lise Klaveness told AP. ''It is very important to have a full pyramid that girls can see that they can have this as a job.''

She said the real DNA in soccer is the connection with local clubs.

''We haven't really had that with women. Now you see it more and more,'' she said.

She added that many top leaders on the men's side show real ambitions to raise their women's teams.

''If you meet the Arsenal president or (Joan) Laporta at Barcelona he feels very close to his women's team. When the women's team plays, he is there,'' Klaveness said.

International expansion

As the club game has gotten bigger — England's top women's league is expanding — so have the international competitions.

At Euro 1984, there were just four teams in the inaugural tournament: England, Italy, Sweden and Denmark.

It wasn't until 1997 that it was expanded to eight teams, becoming 12 in 2009 and increased to the current format of 16 from the 2017 edition.

At Euro 2009 there was an average attendance of just over 5,000 at the matches in England. In the same country in 2022, the average was 18,544.

And just as attendance levels have soared, so have television viewing figures.

Euro 2022 had a global cumulative live viewership of 365 million across TV, out-of-home viewing and streaming. That was more than double the number of live viewers compared to the 2017 edition (178 million) and 214% more live viewers than in 2013 (116 million).

The rise in attendances is also evident in club soccer as women start playing in stadiums with bigger capacities and clubs start to invest more in their women's teams. A couple of Barcelona's Women's Champions League matches in 2022 drew more than 90,000 fans.

A major change that's happened in recent years is investors are now looking at women's soccer as something you can make money off, said Seattle Reign coach Laura Harvey, who coached Arsenal and Birmingham City in her native England before moving to the U.S.

''For those of us who've been in this a long time — I was Birmingham City's head coach in 2006 — and to think where the game's evolved in 19 years or whatever it's been, it's just wild,'' she told AP. ''I'm glad that I can be part of it.''

Unbundling sponsorship

The continued growth in popularity of women's soccer has the knock-on effect of more sponsorship, more prize money and more to invest in grassroots soccer and clubs.

In 2017, UEFA made what was perceived as a bold move: unbundling sponsorship rights for its women's competitions and selling the commercial rights separately from the men's.

That was done with the express purpose of ''accelerating the growth of women's football competitions'' and was considered a success.

So much so that FIFA has followed suit, as have governing bodies of other sports.

UEFA now counts 11 dedicated women's soccer partners among its wider portfolio, including Visa, Amazon and Adidas.

There are more than 20 sponsors for Euro 2025 and that revenue is projected to increase by 145% compared to 2022, according to UEFA.

''The impact of Women's Euro 2025 extends far beyond the competition itself,'' UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said in a report last month. ''With record prize money and unprecedented interest from sponsors, the tournament will bring more investment into the women's game than ever before.''

The prize pot at Euro 2025 has been set at 41 million euros ($47 million), more than double the 16 million euros ($18.3 million) received by national associations in 2022.

Moreover, players will receive a guaranteed share from their national associations for the first time.

The men's Euro 2024 had a total prize fund of 331 million euros ($347 million), with each of the 24 teams receiving a minimum of 9.25 million euros and champion Spain earning 28.25 million euros.

UEFA's aim is that Euro 2025 will act as a catalyst for further progress in the women's professional game in Switzerland and across Europe.

However, Klaveness has a warning: that the richest leagues shouldn't financially separate themselves completely from the currently semi-pro ones.

''Now I think the next step that's really important to go further now is … not to let the head move away from the body, then we would do the same as the men's side,'' she said.

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AP Sports Writers Tales Azzoni in Madrid, Graham Dunbar in Geneva and Anne M. Peterson in Portland, Ore, contributed to this report.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer