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Womens Sport Revolution – Inside The World Cup

Brandwave Founder Daniel Macaulay was invited to WebSummit in Lisbon, Portugal to chair a panel discussion entitled ‘Womens Sport Revolution – Inside the World Cup’ on the Sports Trade stage. WebSummit is the worlds largest tech and digital trade show, selling out at 72,000 attendees this year. In this blog, Dan gives us the insider view on what went down at WebSummit and all things Womens World Cup…

WebSummit… Wow – what can I say? It has to be seen to be believed!
From relatively humble beginnings in Ireland, this show has swiftly grown to become an absolute monster. The sheer scale of it when you arrive can intimidate even the most seasoned speaker and speaking of speakers, they’ve had some good ones: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawkins to name but a few. It’s a show that transcends cultural boundaries and has become one of the global platforms for those with something important to say.
Within WebSummit; The Sport Trade stage could be a show within itself attracting the A-list athletes and sports commentators from football and UFC to surfing and golf.
With all of this in mind, it was with a mix of excitement and awe, I stepped onto the stage to host my first WebSummit expert panel discussion.
The 2019 FIFA Womens World Cup exceeded all expectations- records were destroyed and over 59 million people watched Brazil’s last 16 game against hosts France making it the most watched women’s football match of all time. The key question I was tasked with answering was

“How can the sport capitalise on this success and where can they go next?”.

With me to discuss exactly that I was joined by Barbara Slater Director of Sport at the BBC, World Cup winner Meghan Klingenberg, and entrepreneur Jenny Wang of Re Inc
Watch highlights of the panel discussion here:
Alastair Lecomte