Juliana Pires always liked football. However, it was with predictions about fantasy games, or Fantasy Sports, that she managed to go a long way. The 32-year-old from Pernambuco is a digital content creator, sports commentator, and has thousands of followers on social media, where she is known as "The Ball Owner."
She represents the growing female audience in sports. According to data analyzed by the Brazilian Association of Fantasy Sports (ABFS), this trend is not limited to Brazil.
In South Korea, women represent 55% of fans of professional sports, including football, baseball, volleyball, and basketball. The stadiums in the Asian country already record almost 2/3 of the audience being female. In the USA, there has recently been a considerable increase in female viewership in the NFL, largely due to the "Taylor Swift effect." With a growth of 9% compared to the previous season, the league recorded the highest number of viewers of its kind since it started measuring this statistic. Not to mention the big event that highlighted not only the growth of women's interest in sports, but also greater involvement in women's sports, was the 2023 Women's World Cup.
This growing female participation is also noticed in the virtual world: data analyzed by the ABFS shows that 51% of the audience playing electronic games is composed of women. And this reality extends to Fantasy Sports, which are electronic sports in which the competitor becomes a virtual coach of an equally virtual team but based on real-world sports championships. Here's how it works: each player selects their team according to what they believe to be the best strategy.
The tactic involves the player's knowledge of the sport, understanding of the market, and acquired skills. Each virtual team will score points according to the performance of real-world individuals and teams, resulting in points that, when added or subtracted, will compose the player's performance in the overall ranking.
For the Regulatory and Public Affairs lawyer at Rei do Pitaco and director of Government Relations at ABFS, Bárbara Teles, fantasy sports are great allies of traditional sports in terms of audience. And electronic sports offer possibilities that go far beyond physical attributes, one of the factors attracting an increasing number of women.
"In Fantasy, you can be a virtual coach, assuming cognitive and strategic skills, analysis. It just requires preparation. And this also ensures promotion of traditional sports, as they start to watch and follow traditional sports much more," she explains.
Teles mentions that last year, ABFS held the first Brazilian Fantasy Sports Championship. The pleasant surprise was that 58% of the teams had women among the players, and one of these teams was led by a woman.
"In electronic sports, women and men can compete against each other. Equal participation is certain because both men and women possess this analytical ability and can compete on equal footing. It's just about seeking better strategies, analyzing the market, the players, forming this cognitive skill."
Despite the positive indicators, Teles emphasizes that there is still much to progress in an environment that may seem predominantly male. "We want to bring more and more women to be part of Fantasy Sports. It is with this in mind that ABFS associated companies started offering female competition teams. This brings even more visibility to the sport because it's a two-way street: people will follow more sports played by women so that they can perform well in Fantasy," she concludes.
Source: GMB
