The Women's European Championship is coming home to its record champions. Germany, eight-time winners of this competition, are hosting their first women's Euros since 2001 and a lot of the focus has been on the German FA's (DFB) aim to make the tournament the first profitable women's Euros.
"The symbolism of a 'profitable' women's Euro is powerful, but it's not a guarantee of long-term health. Profit in 2029 must be judged by what it leaves behind for girls and women in Germany, not just by a closing balance sheet," Popi Sotiriadou told DW.
Sotiriadou is an associate professor in the department of tourism and marketing at Griffith University in Australia, and an expert in the business of women's sport.
The DFB's plan to create this profit is based on more than a million tickets being sold, financial commitments from each of the host cities, and support from German business. Sotiriadou believes that if Germany can hit or exceed the one-million ticket target, uplift media rights values, and lock in a smart, multi-year sponsorship portfolio, turning a profit is realistic.
"A profitable women's Euro can either be a headline or a turning point. The difference will be whether those profits are ring-fenced for women and girls, or quietly absorbed into existing structures."
The 14 Bundesliga clubs recently established the FBL (Women's Bundesliga Association), which is designed to improve the marketing and professionalization of the league. That it has been done without the DFB came as a surprise, and the lack of alignment is not ideal. Indeed, what happens now with the DFB's €100 million ($117.6 million) commitment to women's football is unclear. There is some belief that the DFB will eventually be involved, though.
Alex Culvin is the director of women's football at FIFPRO, the international football player union. The former player believes a women's tournament will eventually be profitable because investing in women's sport already makes good business sense.
"I think investment in women's sport has proven to be a smart business idea," said Culvin, who believes what is valuable in women's football is not the same as what it is valuable in the men's game.
"It's a start up essentially. So (you) have to have a startup mentality and that's why venture capitalists do so well in women's football because they just see it as a product," Culvin said.
"How do I make this commercially profitable and viable? I do that by taking the kind of leverage and the profile of this sport and selling that in a way that's marketable and profitable and commercially viable for entities to invest in."
The DFB's pitch certainly suggests this has and will be taken into consideration, but there are also questions about whether the value of the players will also be taken into account.
"The players for me are so interesting," Culvin said. "At their core, they're activists because they've spent so much time operating in the margins so they understand how it feels to be discriminated against. So of course, they want to kind of reduce discrimination while also leaving a legacy on and off the field. And I think for me, if I was an investor, that is commercially valuable."
The financial aspect of this tournament is unescapable, but there is clearly much more at play here.
Germany captain Giulia Gwinn recently admitted on a podcast that combating sexism in the sport was one of the hardest battles she has ever contended with. Indeed, the patriarchy remains an issue for many women in professional sport in Germany. The current Germany women's team has been outspoken about a number of issues, including recently being a leading light in the "Orange the World" , campaign, which opposes violence against women and girls.
For Culvin, if these campaigns are connected to the desires of the team then it can send a powerful message, but that the onus should not be on the country's leading footballers to transport it.
"I think it's always unfair to expect marginalized people to kind of carry the the flame for progressiveness. You see it all the time, Black people are the ones who are meant to explain to White people why racism is offensive, women are meant to explain sexism to men. It's just a very unfair responsibility to carry," Culvin said.
"But I genuinely believe that women's football and the players are transformative when they're collectively working together to do something, to achieve something and I think the players always want to use the very little privilege that they have to make a meaningful impact," she added.
"Whether it makes a dent, I don't know, but I do think the intention of the players to have solidarity with women all around the world is a testament to them as a group of players."
Germany's women are a vocal group and their actions off the field speak to their character as a collective. Clearly, making Euro 2029 a profitable tournament is a key step towards achieving increased success in women's football in the country. But the legacy of the tournament extends beyond the profit-loss margin. Will hosting Euro 2029 lead to more girls playing football, will more people attend women's Bundesliga games, will media coverage increase? Will perceptions of women in society change?
These are the markers of the true legacy of the tournament. If achieved, the summer of 2029, like both the summers of 2006 and 2024 for the men before, has the chance to be socially and culturally impactful for Germany.
