SPRT4L Impact Brief December 2025: Evidence, Infrastructure & Accountability Take Center Stage

December’s signal is clear: women’s sport is no longer just “growing.” It’s building, with dedicated research institutes, permanent facilities, and investment structures designed to last. 

At the same time, the industry’s sustainability narrative is moving from broad claims to provable standards, as regulators and benchmarks tighten expectations.

The result is a month defined by three forces:

• Evidence-based performance and participation,
• Real infrastructure, and
• Trust, earned through measurable action.
  

FOOTBALL:

WOMEN’S PATHWAYS GET REAL INFRASTRUCTURE

In Scotland, Barclays expanded its footprint beyond signage into the actual development pipeline, becoming title partner of the Barclays Next Gen Girls’ Performance Programme, while also taking on new roles across national cup competitions (men’s and women’s) as part of a wider partnership that includes the national stadium naming rights.

In the U.S., U.S. Soccer launched the Kang Women’s Institute, backed by a major gift from Michele Kang, to address a longstanding problem: women athletes training in systems built for men. The announcement pointed to a stark research gap, citing analysis that only 6% of published sports-and-exercise-journal research focuses exclusively on women.

And while football’s “future growth” conversation is often framed around media rights, some of the most consequential movement is happening in access + pathways: the New York Jets and the ECAC announced a $1M grant-backed women’s collegiate flag football league set to debut in Spring 2026, with a 7-on-7 format, a February kickoff (including a MetLife Stadium media day), and a May championship weekend.

Across Europe, the women’s game also kept gaining “home base” legitimacy. FC Bayern’s move to establish a more permanent stadium solution for Bayern Women is part of a broader infrastructure trend: women’s teams increasingly need venues that match demand and UEFA requirements, not borrowed windows on crowded schedules.

December reinforced that women’s football isn’t only changing on the pitch, it’s changing in the boardroom and ownership models too. Multi-club ownership in the women’s game continues to expand, raising both opportunity and governance questions about how talent pathways, commercial leverage, and competitive balance will be managed as investor groups scale across markets.

BASKETBALL & VOLLEYBALL:

THE BUSINESS MODEL LAB MOVES WOMEN-FIRST

Women’s basketball is rapidly becoming the testing ground for new player-centric leagues and compensation structures. Reports around “Project B” describe a new global league concept targeting a 2026 start, built on the thesis that elite women players should be compensated with real salary upside and ownership-style participation.

At the same time, Unrivaled entered the market with a very explicit wedge: pay + ownership. Ahead of tip-off, reporting highlighted an average salary north of $220,000 for an eight-week season, plus equity and additional revenue-sharing mechanisms, paired with a major media partnership to drive distribution.

In women’s sport innovation, Athletes Unlimited continues to push an athlete-forward operating model, and its softball growth has drawn meaningful validation, including MLB investment momentum around the emerging AU softball league ecosystem.

Volleyball is also scaling with intent. League One Volleyball’s expansion plan, with a San Francisco franchise scheduled to debut in January 2027 and a distinctly women-led ownership approach, signals that women’s leagues are no longer simply “rights properties.” They’re increasingly community-rooted businesses designed for repeatable expansion.

And one of the most important commercial myths continues to weaken: the idea that women’s sport sponsorship is “riskier.” A quantitative study analyzing 750+ event title sponsorships found no significant difference in sponsor retention rates between men’s and women’s events, suggesting comparable renewal behavior and challenging outdated assumptions about ROI reliability.

GIRLS’ RETENTION:

BODY CONFIDENCE BECOMES PERFORMANCE INFRA

A quieter (but arguably more structural) signal this month: the participation pipeline is being treated with the same seriousness as elite performance.

Nike and Dove’s Body Confident Sport is designed to directly address a major dropout driver. Nike’s release notes that 45% of teenage girls globally drop out of sport (twice the rate of boys), and frames the coaching environment as a decisive intervention point, citing that 74% of girls said their coach was the reason they felt more confident.

What makes this initiative notable is its evidence posture. Nike describes the tool as co-developed with research partners (Centre for Appearance Research + Tucker Center) and “scientifically proven,” citing clinical trials involving 1,200+ girls and input from nearly 2,000 adolescents across multiple countries.

In other words: girls’ participation isn’t being treated as “inspiration.” It’s being treated like infrastructure, designed, tested, and scaled.

TENNIS:

A LEGACY BRAND BUYS INTO THE FUTURE TOUR

On the commercial side of women’s sport, the WTA secured a significant partnership boost: Mercedes‑Benz will become a Premier Partner and the tour’s exclusive automotive partner beginning January 1, 2026, positioned as one of the most meaningful sponsorship deals in WTA history.

The message here is less about logos and more about category leadership: as women’s sport audiences mature, the biggest brands increasingly want global platforms with both scale and brand safety.

SUSTAINABILITY & PLANETARY PLAY:

FROM PLEDGES TO PROOF

December also put sustainability in a sharper frame: sport can’t talk about climate “in generalities” anymore.   Operational disruption is becoming normal. Reuters reporting highlights how climate-related events increasingly interfere with scheduling and safety, and points to the size of the sector (often estimated around $2T) as a reason climate resilience is now a mainstream business concern, not a niche initiative.

On the “trust” front, regulators are raising the bar. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority published rulings against Nike, Lacoste, and Superdry for sustainability-related Google ads where claims were deemed misleading or insufficiently substantiated, underscoring that the era of vague “sustainable” language is ending fast.

At the same time, credible action frameworks are expanding:

• Formula E again topped global sport sustainability benchmarking (GSBS), reinforcing how competitive advantage is increasingly tied to governance and measurable operating standards.
• Ireland launched a Sustainable Sports Programme including training and a toolkit for NGBs and clubs, explicitly covering biodiversity, water, energy, and travel, and linking the work to a national “Playing for the Planet” conference.
• The Oceania Football Confederation  became a Sports for Nature signatory, positioned as the first continental football confederation to join, under a framework tied to major international institutions and a clear “by 2030” ambition.
• WBD Sports’ commitment through the UCI Climate Action Charter reflects how rights-holders and organizers are being pushed toward common baselines (not bespoke, self-defined standards).

New climate finance tools also emerged. The Sport One / Carbon Zero fund, supported by High Impact Athletes and research partners, positions itself around tackling the biggest drivers of sport’s footprint (e.g., travel and infrastructure) rather than relying on “offset-first” narratives.

And Britain’s Cycling impact reporting shows what “proof” can look like: quantified waste reduction, water savings, and emissions impact tied to specific programs, moving beyond intent into measurement.

Finally, even identity and branding are being pulled into the sustainability conversation. A new BioScience paper cataloging 727 pro teams using wildlife iconography argues sport has an underused platform for conservation, especially given how many commonly used species are threatened or in decline.

MEASURING “WHY SPORT MATTERS”:

THE VALUE CASE GETS NUMERIC

If sustainability is about proof, so is social impact.

Sport England’s latest social value work estimates £122.9bn in social value from community sport and physical activity in England (2023/24), with headline claims around £4.38 returned for every £1 invested, plus a quantified “cost of inequality” tied to participation barriers.

This kind of accounting matters because it turns community sport from a “nice-to-have” into a budgetable system, one that can compete with other public and private priorities using shared economic language.

SPRT4L VIEW

December’s throughline isn’t hype, it’s institution-building.

• Women’s sport is shifting from “moment” to operating system: research institutes, dedicated stadium plans, and league infrastructure are compounding.
• The next sponsorship era won’t be won by interest, it’ll be won by confidence. Evidence that sponsor renewal behavior is comparable across men’s and women’s events accelerates the case for scaled investment.
• Climate strategy is becoming a compliance and credibility issue, not a PR lane, regulatory rulings and standardized frameworks are narrowing what brands can safely say.
• Athlete-first leagues are rewriting compensation norms (salary, equity, revenue share), and that innovation pressure will not stay contained to one sport.
• The impact conversation is maturing: the sector is increasingly expected to quantify outcomes, not just declare purpose.

Formula:

Evidence + Infrastructure + Integrity =   Durable Growth

Next Issue: January 2026