Why the 2023 Women's World Cup could be a watershed moment for women's soccer

The Current21:15Why the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup may be a win for women’s soccer

This Sunday, England and Spain will face-off in the final match of the 2023 Women's World Cup. It's the first time either team has ever made it to the championship game.

And with typically dominant teams including the U.S. and Germany making early exits from the tournament, some sports experts are saying this marks a new era in women's soccer.

"I think it says so much [about] the development of the game," said Sonja Missio, the co-founder of the soccer publication Unusual Efforts.

"There's all this new attention on the game. All these countries that wouldn't necessarily, you know, pay attention to as much before are now having all of these eyes on the game," she told The Current's guest host Catherine Cullen.

Broadcasters reported breaking viewership records for Women's World Cup games, including an estimated 6.43 million people watching the U.S.-Netherlands match according to Fox News. FIFA announced it sold 1.5 million tickets earlier in August, surpassing total sales of tickets compared to the 2019 event in France.

The exposure is pulling people in and making them feel more connected to the players, the teams and the sport, said Missio. And this creates a "snowball effect" of more lucrative sponsorships and more countries investing time and money to develop high-caliber players. 

The tight matches, high drama and upsets that came with such a strong lineup of teams made this World Cup special, according to Laurent Dubois, author of Soccer Empire and The Language of the Game. 

"Sometimes in earlier tournaments you had kind of more lopsided games early on, you know, really big differences" in the final scores, he told The Current. "We had very few games like that this time. And I love that somehow."

A whole new playing field 

As women's soccer grows in popularity, it's also going to get more competitive, said Dubois. He predicts the days in which powerhouse teams predictably dominate in the early games of international tournaments to be over. 

"This was a good wake up call, I think, for the more dominant teams," he said. "I suspect in the U.S. and Germany and elsewhere, there's going to be a response and hopefully that response will be partly about just insisting on and assuring equality in support going forward."

Ever since the Women's World Cup was first recognized by FIFA in 1991, Dubois says players in all different countries have had to fight for equality and their place in the sport.

The fight for equal pay is not over, with a $440 million US prize pool set by FIFA for the men's World Cup last year compared to $152-million for the women's.

To compare just the Canadian teams, the men received $9 million whereas $1.56 million went to the women.

"Women in all of these federations, I think, are always struggling to get the right amount of support, to get as much support as the men's team," Dubois said.

That shared struggle leads to a sense of solidarity between teams on the pitch — no matter who wins or loses a given match, he added.

"It's a very moving thing," said Dubois. "I think there is a common sense of struggle."

Where does Canada fit?

The level of competition is higher now, and Canada — who were eliminated early by a 4-0 loss to Australia — can't take that for granted, said Dubois.

He doesn't think the team should be counted out, but said Soccer Canada has a lot of work to do on a systemic level if they want to see the former Olympic champions rise back to the top. 

The team's biggest hurdle, according to Mussio, will be qualifying for the next Olympics, though she thinks it will be more of a mental block than a physical or talent-related one.

She also called for more women in leadership roles at FIFA and other sports-governing bodies, and "more balanced media coverage" for men's and women's sports.

"We can't just wait to support women's soccer until they're on the world stage, and then just expect them to do well," said Mussio.

"You can have the best team in the world, but without those sorts of pillars and development around them, it doesn't mean much."