The growth of female public participation in sports is a global trend and is also noticed in the virtual world. Data analyzed by the Brazilian Association of Fantasy Sports (ABFS) show that 51% of the electronic games playing audience is made up of women. And this reality extends to the FS sector. In this article, expert Bárbara Teles, Regulatory and Public Affairs lawyer at Rei do Pitaco, explains the reasons for this phenomenon.
Juliana Pires has always liked football. But it was with the guesses about fantasy games, or Fantasy Sports, that she managed to go far. The 32-year-old from Pernambuco is a digital content creator, sports commentator, and has thousands of followers on social media, where she is known as "The ball owner".
She represents the female audience that only grows in sports. According to data analyzed by the Brazilian Association of Fantasy Sports (ABFS), it is a trend that is not limited to Brazil.
In South Korea, women represent 55% of professional sports fans, including football, baseball, volleyball, and basketball. The stadiums in the Asian country already record almost 2/3 of the audience being female. In the USA, there was recently a considerable increase in female audience in the NFL due, in large part, to the “Taylor Swift effect”.
With a growth of 9% compared to the previous season, the league recorded the highest number of female viewers since it began measuring this statistic. Not to mention the major event that highlighted not only the growth of women's interest in sports but also greater involvement in women's sports, was the 2023 Women's World Cup.
This increasing female participation is also noticed in the virtual world: data analyzed by the ABFS show that 51% of the electronic games playing audience is made up of women. And this reality extends to Fantasy Sports, which are electronic sports in which the competitor becomes a virtual coach of an equally virtual team, but based on real-world sports championships. It works like this: each player sets up their team according to what they believe is the best strategy.
The tactic goes through the player's knowledge of the sport, understanding of the market, and acquired skills. Each virtual team will score according to the performance of people and teams in the real world, resulting in points that, added or subtracted, will compose the player's performance in the overall ranking.
For the Regulatory and Public Affairs lawyer at Rei do Pitaco and Director of Government Relations at ABFS, Bárbara Teles, fantasy sports are great allies of traditional sports in terms of audience. And electronic sport offers possibilities that go far beyond physical attributes, one of the factors that attract an increasing number of women. “In Fantasy, you can be a virtual coach, assuming cognitive skills and strategies, of analysis. It just requires preparation. And this also guarantees a promotion of traditional sports, as they start to watch and follow much more traditional sports”, she explains.
Teles reports that, last year, the ABFS held the first Brazilian Championship of Fantasy Sports. And the pleasant surprise was that 58% of the teams had women among the players and one of these teams was led by a woman. “In electronic sports, women and men can compete against each other. The equality of participation is certain as both men and women hold this analytical capacity and can compete on an equal footing. Just seek better strategies, analyze the market, the players, form this cognitive ability”.
Despite the good indicators, Teles emphasizes that there is still much to progress in an environment that may seem predominantly male. “We want to increasingly bring women to be part of Fantasy Sports. It is with this in mind that associated companies of the ABFS have started to offer teams of women's competitions. This brings even more visibility to the sport, as it is a two-way street: people will follow more sports practiced by women so that they can perform well in Fantasy”, she concludes.
Source: GMB
