Executive Summary

Brought to life by Sports Innovation Lab and the smarter flexible payments network Klarna, “Rep Her: Revealing the Unmet Demand Demand for Women’s Sports Merchandise,” is the latest piece of specialized research within The Fan Project women’s sports report series. This report dives into the current state of women's sports merchandise, highlighting the significant disparities in availability and quality compared to men's sports merchandise and underscoring the substantial 4 billion-dollar market opportunity that exists in today’s sports landscape.

Within this report, we put real numbers behind women’s sports merchandise Market Value and Potential, Inventory Disparities, Fan Purchasing Behavior, Barriers to Purchase, Unmet Demand and Lost Sales, Top Selling Items, Growth of Women's Sports, Emerging Markets and International Demand, as well as the Impact of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) in the space. We also offer Strategic Recommendations for how properties, brands, and businesses can take hold of this massive opportunity and grow the space for the entire women’s sports ecosystem and its current – and future – fans…

By applying the investment banking concept of ‘value investing’, this report presents a new way to think about investing in women’s sports. This report outlines three different investment profiles for brands to consider in order to maximize their ROI while eliminating barriers to the growth of the industry.

The largest observational study ever conducted on the spending habits of fans of women’s sports. This report presents a new and necessary metric to measuring the growth of the entire industry, and offers a benchmark to compare and evaluate traditional and emerging markets.

The first report from Sports Innovation Lab on the business potential of women’s sports released in 2021. The Fan Project used more than 10 million data points from anonymously submitted social media files -- enriched with 10 billion fan TV viewership data points, partner data from major leagues, brands, and media companies, and market research -- to illustrate the real numbers and behaviors behind women’s sports -- and how leading sports brands can invest differently to create breakthrough fan experiences using technology.