Female leagues

[Gangor]

I brought this up in the old suggestions thread, but I'd like to put it forward again here. Women's football is starting to get more coverage in the media and indeed is quite a big deal in its own right in the States. Fran Kirby was even featured in #WeAreTheManagers. It's time that female leagues were included in FM, or at the very least put the facility into the editor so the community can add them. I believe there's already a gender flag for people (we can already get female staff), so it would just require a matching flag for competitions and for teams. 

Given the fairly saturated nature of the traditional market for FM, this would be a unique way to expand it's appeal in particular across the pond. 

[KUBI]

The main problem is research. Not only for England, but for all countries in which female football is popular. Germany for example. The game can't be released there, due to licensing issues. Would there be enough researchers for Scandinavia and other countries?

Another problem is how to integrate it into a game like FM. Should you be able to run both male and female leagues in a save? 

[Gangor]

For the first point, it is true that you'd need more researchers if you officially supported the leagues, but what's to stop them from allowing them to be added in the editor? Besides, as I mentioned adding these leagues would have the potential to widen the appeal of the game, so perhaps the extra research would be worth it. 

For the second point, why not? If each team and league has a gender flag and can only sign the appropriate gender players, what's the problem?

[Gangor]

Also, since SI crowdsources their database, it's kind of a chicken and egg thing. How do you know that people wouldn't be willing to do the research if you don't give them the opportunity. If it was included in the editor, you'd soon find out if there were enough interested people as you'd get custom databases appearing on the workshop

[KUBI]

It's really not that easy. Adding anything to the game will always have some side-effects. The question is, is female football already that popular to include it into FM? But there is another problem with licenses. It's already very complicated with male football. 

 

And for the female "flag". It's not only players, but also clubs and nations. And as for male clubs, staff members could be both male and female, players not. It's not that easy.

[Gangor]

I suspect that it's more popular than Gibraltarian football, and SI support that! A quick google search reveals that attendance for NWSL games is similar to League 1. With regard to the licenses, I think there's more incentive for them to be granted since inclusion in a popular video game has a positive affect on interest in the relevant league. For evidence of this look at SI's own marketing. Half of the WATM videos are about players getting interested in obscure teams because of playing FM. Womans' football has much more need for this than Mens'.

Besides, isn't it in FIFA? If EA can do it, why not SI?

[KUBI]

6 minutes ago, Gangor said:

Besides, isn't it in FIFA? If EA can do it, why not SI?

There we are about licensing.

[Gangor]

8 minutes ago, KUBI said:

There we are about licensing.

They also have the football league and premier league. I appreciate that I have no idea about the commercial realities of video game sports licenses, but surely if both games can use these leagues, something can be worked out so they can both use women's leagues. Even if they can't, the first step is to add the functionality - there's no need necessarily for licenses in the first iteration. Let people make custom databases and use the response to that to gauge what interest there is on getting the licenses and whether the effort would be worth it

[KUBI]

Without any license you can't promote it. It's always a combination of good idea, license, market and what you offer in the game.

[Gangor]

Well, I guess both our points are pretty well made. Thanks for engaging, @KUBI!

[KUBI]

Your'e welcome. Personally, I would like to see it in the game, but I can also see the difficulties to do it.

[theopert]

And exactly how much does licensing cost and what's the pay structure?

Radio sations play male and female music and pay a percentage of the music cost... 5-10% of sales and 5-10% of profits.

Any way FM can pay 5-10% of sales and 5-10% of profits to the relevant body?

It would be interesting to know these answers.

 

[tiago_wakabayashi]

On 31/07/2016 at 21:15, KUBI said:

The main problem is research. Not only for England, but for all countries in which female football is popular. Germany for example. The game can't be released there, due to licensing issues. Would there be enough researchers for Scandinavia and other countries?

Another problem is how to integrate it into a game like FM. Should you be able to run both male and female leagues in a save? 

Should you be able to run both male and female leagues in a save? 

Yes, why not? To me, more options to work during the save haha. But an option for I run the both "worlds" or just one of them while is the other one is simulated.

Germany for example. The game can't be released there, due to licensing issues. Would there be enough researchers for Scandinavia and other countries?

But I am not german and I can do a Bundesliga save. Could be the same thing with the "ladies" Bundesliga. 

Firstly, I think SI should do as EA did: start with the National Teams. Could be created the national leagues based on the real ones just to be created new female players to the National Teams and focus on some real female league, as the Premier League Ladies or the NWSL.

I was remembering about early FM's there were some real female players on DB as Marta but it was just to dispute the COB Award (Olympic Brazilian Committee) of Best Athlete. 

[Guest]

Miles has been very clear on the real world test to be met for SI to consider Women's leagues as a viable commercial option (there's more cost that just gathering data), that is for at least 5 top divisions in women's football to have average attendances close to those of the English Championship.

The average attendance in the German Bundesliga last season was 1,076 & according to Wiki the final of the Women's Champions League attracted an attendance of just 15,117,.

[bomba35]

While I would love to see Female football added to FM, I think there are more issues then just licensing and research. In my opinion, the match engine would have to be modified for female game because of attributes (same attribute value for male and female would have a different value on scale), otherwise we would watch the same games just with different names.

But if the point where SI would consider adding Female football to FM is really that top 5 Female leagues have attendance close to English Championship, then we'll never see Female football in FM. Attendance in Championship in 2015/16 season was, according to Wikipedia, 17.583 per game, which is 14th in the world (just football leagues), and more than average attendance in Beligian, Swiss, Brazilian, Portugese and Russian premier leagues.  

 

[Lord Rowell]

13 hours ago, Barside said:

Miles has been very clear on the real world test to be met for SI to consider Women's leagues as a viable commercial option (there's more cost that just gathering data), that is for at least 5 top divisions in women's football to have average attendances close to those of the English Championship.

The average attendance in the German Bundesliga last season was 1,076 & according to Wiki the final of the Women's Champions League attracted an attendance of just 15,117,.

That seems to me to be a very odd benchmark and leaves Miles open to a charge of inconsistency in approach. SI support leagues with far lower attendance levels than the English Championship.

[KUBI]

I still like it as a general idea, but would prefer first to have a lot more youth tournaments in the game, like the Blue Star youth cup in Zürich and similar tournaments worldwide.

[KUBI]

7 minutes ago, Lord Rowell said:

SI support leagues with far lower attendance levels than the English Championship.

That's true, but they don't have to adapt the whole game to add those leagues.

[Gangor]

7 hours ago, KUBI said:

That's true, but they don't have to adapt the whole game to add those leagues.

I question the need for major adaptions. The only really vital one is the ability to designate teams and leagues as male only or female only. Any further adaptions could be left to later versions depending on the interest in custom female leagues on the workshop.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.