More and more women are watching the world’s top sporting events, according to research from Initiative Sports Futures, Initiative’s global sports consultancy division. It’s so much the case, in fact, that they’re actually behind a good part of the growth in the top events.

In some countries women can account for more than half the viewing for some major events.

Just why is a curious thing. It appears to have more to do with celebrity than sports, as the world’s rich sports stars enter the realm of popular culture. Jocks are in as never before, as was seen just recently when British footballer David Beckham signed to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team, amid worldwide hoopla in the celebrity press.

“Rather than just being about the pure competitive elements of it, the personalities off the field are becoming as important as the technical skills on the field,” says Kevin Alavy, head of analytics for Initiative Sports Futures.

This intriguing finding arises out of Initiative's efforts to rank the world’s top 10 TV sporting events. It found that the top five have been gaining audience, with women behind much of it, while many of the lesser events were actually losing audience.

For the top TV sports event of 2006, the FIFA World Cup Final (Italy vs. France), Initiative found that women accounted for 41 percent of the global audience, a larger share than ever before.

Two years before, for the UEFA European Football Championship, women made up 40 percent of the TV audience. And during World Cup 2002, women were 39 percent of the audience. “It is gradually gaining share. If it continues, it won’t take that long to get to 50 percent,” says Alavy. 

Alavy also looked at several other sports, including the 2004 Summer Olympics, in two key countries, Britain and Germany.

In Britain the female TV viewing share for the Sydney Olympics in 2000 was 49 percent. Just four years later, for the Summer Olympics in Athens, their audience share had grown to 54 percent. “A five percentage point jump is a very significant jump over just four years,” notes Alavy.  His research came up with a similar pattern in Germany.

“What we saw in both countries is that for the first time ever women accounted for more than half of all viewing at the Summer Olympics,” he says. “I think that these countries are representative of a broader trend. It is highly likely that these sports are getting a growing female share.”

Initiative will be researching in detail the demographic data on a host of other top sports during the next six months, including the 2006 Winter Olympics.

But Alavy is already persuaded that what’s been uncovered so far affirms a global trend of more women watching the top global TV sporting events.

As much as anything, Alavy theorizes that it reflects the evolving economics of televised sports. More television outlets have led to more competition for the rights to major sporting events, which in turn has boosted the salaries of the stars of those sports.

And as their salaries have grown, their lifestyles have become more aspirational. They are idolized as sports heroes but more and more they are followed after in their personal lives by celebrity magazines and TV shows. 

“If you think about celebrity magazines, it’s not just pop stars or actors and actresses, but people from the world of sports, too,” says Alavy. “That raises their profiles. That’s another reason for women to tune in.”