‘We invest more in women’s sports than any other broadcasts in the country’: Kayo’s Kim McConnie

“From an overall Foxtel Group point-of-view, we invest more in women’s sports than any other broadcasts in the country,” Kayo marketing director, Kim McConnie told Mumbrella at the Ministry of Sport’s Women in Sport Summit last week.

“When you think about the investment, not only is it an investment in elevating the game, for example with netball, we invested heavily in tech, overhead cameras, to really promote the broadcast,” said McConnie. “There’s the investment in the depth and breadth of sport. We have over 15 sports, 24 competitions, and 4,700 hours, then there are also commentators, talent, and presenters. We are proud that we’re the leader in investing in the game.”

Kayo’s Kim McConnie.

The popularity of women’s sports is on a strong growth trajectory, according to the latest figures released by Fox Sports earlier this year.

The research, conducted in partnership with YouGov, sampled 3054 adults between the eighth to the 15th of February this year, finding that 70% of Australians had increased their consumption of women’s sports since pre-pandemic times.

The growing support for women’s sports is not just being driven by female viewers, with 72% of males indicating that they were tuning into women’s sports across AFL Women’s (AFLW), NRL Women’s (NRLW) and Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), accounting for a total two-thirds of women’s sports viewers.

“Two-thirds of the viewership of women’s sports are men,” said McConnie. “To me, that’s a really healthy sign because it means they’re not just seeing men versus women, they’re seeing that it’s just a really good game!”

Of those who were viewing more women’s sports, 56% attributed their viewing behaviours to the increased media coverage of women’s sports events and stars, and 49% pointed to increased dedicated broadcast coverage.

Women’s cricket leads the charge for women’s sport, with the final of the 2020 Women’s Cricket World Cup in Australia, between Australia and India, identified as the biggest women’s sports event ever, viewed by over 450,000 people. This year’s event is being broadcast on a 24/7 dedicated channel on Foxtel and will be made available on Foxtel’s Kayo Freebies, following Nine’s decision not to obtain free-to-air broadcast rights for the competition.

“Our last recorded number on Kayo is 1.3 million subscribers,” McConnie said. “We can see that women’s sport follows men’s sport. There were 450,000 people watching the Women’s Cricket World Cup, so, cricket is constantly the number one performer.

“That’s big numbers, 450,000 people are huge, so, cricket is big for us, and we’re looking forward to seeing some big numbers in the World Cup coming up,” she said.

“Then, you have the AFLW and NRLW, in particular, the grand finals do really well for us, we pull in big numbers. Interestingly, it follows the same curve as the men, the thing that we don’t know is the Diamonds in netball. We’re really interested to see where the Diamonds, playing on home soil what sort of numbers it will pull in,” McConnie noted.

With women’s sports viewership in Australia on the rise, McConnie said it’s a key driver of growth in Kayo’s strategy in the next two years.

“Women’s sport is really important for our strategy for Kayo,” she said. “The reason is we want to talk to 100% of sports fans, and you know and I know a huge part of that is capturing women as well. For us to grow, we need to capture that fan base. We are also investing in streaming tier 2, and tier 3 sports.

“People want to see the pathways to the elite so for us that connects the whole circle.”

So, how does women’s viewership hold up against men’s sports?

“I think the challenge is to not compare AFL Women’s to AFL Men’s because you have to think how long Men’s AFL has been around compared to the Women’s,” said McConnie. “It really needs more chance to grow. Saying that the growth of women’s sports is growing at 70% year-on-year. So, you think in ten years’ time, it’s going to have a huge viewership.”

As for Kayo’s partnerships, McConnie said it’s healthy: “We’re really lucky and the women’s sports we have are really lucky. Having partners like Suncorp who don’t just invest in netball but invest broader than that. Partners like Woolworths, and Toyota investing in women’s sports overall.

“They’re investing on an elite level, and teams level, a broadcast level. And, I think now we’re actually starting to collaborate much more closely. We’re really trying to think about how can we elevate the game, what we need to do and how we do it.”

Looking ahead, McConnie explained Kayo’s main focus in the next two years is to broaden its fan ecosystem.

“From a Kayo point-of-view, we’re really focused on bringing in that next level of fan. We’re looking at making sure we go broader,” she said. “We have a really strong base, breadth and depth of sport. If you’re a fanatic, we’ve got you. What we’re doing now is focussing on individual sports fans. Some fans just come in to watch their netball or their AFL.”

“So, we’re really working on broadening the appeal of Kayo, which is why Freebie is playing so much more of a stronger role for us,” added McConnie. “We need to demonstrate that we’re adding value. It’s a way for us to get people in. broadening our sports, that’s why we’re so excited to have netball, moving into community sport, and being that one-stop ecosystem.”