For players and spectators it is fast and skillful; for sponsors it is "now competitive value of money," according to Sue Mott of the London INDEPENDENT. Everyone is a winner, it seems, "when it comes to women’s sport." After years of struggling for recognition, the FA Women’s Cup "is to receive sponsorship worth millions of pounds from the energy firm SSE, guaranteeing the final at Wembley for the next four years and providing proof of a cultural shift in perceptions about women’s sport." And the deal announced last week "follows news of other recent partnerships between the South Korean car firm Kia and women’s cricket, the banking group Investec and women’s hockey, and Microsoft and the Women’s Sport Trust." The sponsorship of the women’s Boat Race earlier this year by management firm Newton "was seen as so groundbreaking that Clare Balding missed the Grand National to commentate." Women’s sport has not always "been this blessed." As recently as last autumn, three days after Marlie Packer had been crowned a Women’s Rugby World Cup champion in the victorious England team, she "was back at work as a plumber." With the BBC, BT Sport and Sky all expanding their coverage of women’s sport and the impact of London 2012, greater professionalization of women’s sport and incursions into the male sport-sponsorship market, "many businesses have studied the return on sponsorship investment and concluded that it makes sense." EY Dir of Sport & Sponsorship Tom Kingsley said, "Less than half of 1 percent of sport sponsorship is invested in women’s sport. Business is about making a return on investment; look at the return some companies have made. ... In business terms, women’s sport is an emerging market and offers great potential." Jamie Brookes, trustee of the Women’s Sport Trust, said that women’s sport is significantly cheaper to access than men’s by "a factor of about 30" (INDEPENDENT, 6/14).
