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Sky and BBC to show the FA Women’s Super League in new ‘Landmark deal’

The Women’s Super League will be broadcast on free-to-air TV for the first time as the BBC secure a three-year Broadcast deal.

Starting next season, the WSL will now be shown across Sky Sports and the BBC in a landmark deal for women’s football.

It is the first time that the WSL has been sold separately to the men’s game, with clubs in the league receiving a proportion of the revenue.

The PA news agency understands that the deal will be worth £15 million a season to Sky Sports.

The BBC will broadcast a minimum of 22 live games across the season, with at least 18 featuring on BBC One and BBC Two.

Sky Sports will take over from BT Sport as the senior broadcaster, showing 44 games in the season across the Main Event, Premier League and Sky Sports Football channel.

The BBC will broadcast a live game every weekend, and Sky Sports will show two each week.

FA director of the Women’s game Kelly Simmons hopes the deal will give the game a boost.

“It is one of the biggest deals commercially, definitely for women’s football in terms of a domestic deal, and up there for women’s sport.

“This is a landmark deal, not just for the WSL, but the whole of the women’s game,” said Simmons.

The FA Director also has hopes that the deal can be one of the most impactful in women’s sport.

“We have benchmarks for what we think are the most successful, high-profile women’s sport leagues in the world like the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) and the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League), and they are low hundreds of thousands in terms of an average peak per week.

“We anticipate this would significantly be above that,” said Simmons.

The agreement will start in September 2021, and will run until 2024.

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