WSL rebrand 'one step on the journey', but what next?

New branding and renaming the Championship to Women's Super League 2 was announced this month as WSL Football - the company that oversees the top two tiers of women's football in England - seeks to "grow the women's game for the future".

It is the first major change WSL Football - formerly known as Women's Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL) - has made since it assumed control of the top two tiers from the Football Association in August 2024.

Nikki Doucet, CEO of WSL Football, told BBC Radio 5 Live's Women's Football Weekly podcast: "The mission is to build the most distinctive, competitive, and entertaining women's football club competitions in the world."

But there was backlash on social media over the changes, with fans questioning the decision to revert back to naming the second tier WSL 2 and also calling for focus on more direct investment into the game than rebranding.

In response, Doucet said fans are asking "all the right questions" and that the rebrand is "only one step on the journey to further raise the game".

Asked why they have reverted to the old name of the second tier, Doucet added: "It means we're investing more in that league [WSL 2] and we're allowing it to have more visibility, under a unified umbrella."

For Doucet, the new era for women's professional football in England goes far beyond the rebrand.

By having a "dedicated team of experts" whose job it is to grow the game, she said WSL Football will be able to deliver the innovation needed to expand.

She talked about scheduling times, a consistent women's football TV slot and ease for away travel.

There had been criticism over some fixture scheduling not being conducive to attracting fans - namely Sunday 18:45 kick-offs - and while Doucet agreed that particular slot is not family friendly, she also said there is not currently a "natural broadcast slot" for WSL games.

It is not just the broadcast partners that WSL Football must come to an agreement on kick-off times with. As most WSL teams do not have their own stadium, they are often tasked with scheduling around men's fixtures as well.

While Doucet described women's football as existing within a "complex ecosystem," Chelsea moved their final home Premier League game of the season to ensure their ers could also attend Chelsea's Women's FA Cup final last week.

Doucet discussed plans to launch a new website which will provide a "one stop shop for women's football", as well as announcing that every WSL 2 game will be shown live on the WSL YouTube channel, with "upped production" paid for by the league.

Interest in the domestic game piqued after England's Euro 2022 triumph.

After England beat at Wembley, Gabby Logan signed off from presenting the BBC One coverage by calling on viewers to "get yourself to a WSL game this season".

And in numbers, the fans came.

Every WSL club saw increased attendances on the back of the Lionesses claiming their first major trophy.

Clubs home to high-profile Lionesses drew the biggest crowds, with Arsenal attracting the most of any club and setting a new WSL attendance record of 47,367 in their first home game at Emirates Stadium post-Euros.

The Gunners have gone on to break the WSL attendance record another three times, but despite playing two more games in the 2024-25 campaign at the Emirates their average attendance was lower than the previous season.

Another four WSL teams also saw the spike in attendances tail off in 2024-25 , with Aston Villa, Everton, Manchester City and Manchester United all seeing lower average crowds.

Everton announced last week that their women's side are to make the 39,572 capacity Goodison Park their new home.

This comes after a season where Everton's average home crowd at Walton Hall Park was 1,956, with almost half of those games drawing in crowds of less than 1,000 people.

The club is working through plans to reduce the capacity of the stadium before the women's team move in.

Aston Villa and Leicester City are the only current WSL sides who play all of their fixtures at their club's main stadium.

Leicester have narrowly increased their average attendance from last season but are still in decline since 2022-23, while Aston Villa's average attendance has fallen this season, despite playing six more games at Villa Park than the season before.

Clearly more needs to be done to attract crowds to women's football at bigger stadia.

Doucet says it is not just independent women's clubs, such as the newly promoted London City Lionesses, who need in attracting crowds but Premier League clubs too, as they have "probably not had to have a ticketing strategy before" because their grounds are usually sold out.

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