Women's soccer, volleyball's inspiration: bringing the games to where the fans are
At The Women's League Summit, Elena Mirandola proposed the volleyball model as a way to expand the audience for women's soccer, including live broadcasts on YouTube and the social media channels of clubs and athletes.
During The Women's League Summit, promoted by The Football Week, Elena Mirandola , former CEO of Como Women and now founder of The Breakaway , a strategic consultancy firm specializing in women's sport, offered a reflection on the diffusion of matches and the possibilities of bringing new spectators to women's football.
The Italian movement has long been calling for greater visibility: more space in newspapers, on television news, and on sports programs. Alongside news coverage, however, lies another issue: where the games are broadcast and how easy it is to find them, even for those who don't yet follow the championship.
Mirandola's point concerns the model introduced by the Women's Volleyball League for the 2026/27 season, which combines television broadcasts and streaming with the option to follow some matches through the League's, clubs', and players' social media channels.
The model of women's volleyball
The women's Serie A1 volleyball league has chosen a multi-platform distribution model. DAZN broadcasts the entire championship on a subscription basis , while Rai Sport offers one or two free-to-air matches per week, depending on the schedule.
In addition to these, there are three matches per regular season round, available for free on the League's YouTube channel.
The new feature also involves the direct involvement of the protagonists: the matches selected for social media distribution can be rebroadcast through the channels of the participating clubs and players. The communities that follow teams and athletes thus become an additional point of access to the matches.
Serie A2, on the other hand, has different conditions: the entire championship is available for free on DAZN, with prior registration. Four matches per round are also broadcast on YouTube, while the other four remain exclusive to the platform, again without the need for a subscription.
How Serie A Women Works
Italian women's football already offers very broad free access.
For the past three seasons, all Serie A Women matches have been broadcast on DAZN and, with the exception of the one also offered by Rai, the matches are available in Freemium mode: just create a free account.
One match per weekend is also broadcast on Rai channels and on RaiPlay.
Viewers can follow the entire championship without a subscription by combining the two services. YouTube and the competition's official social media channels host goals, highlights, and other content.
From free to the possibility of reaching new audiences
The comparison therefore opens a reflection on how matches can reach people who are not yet looking for them.
Those who already follow Serie A Women have free tools available to watch it.
However, a live broadcast on a club or athlete's channels could also bring together those who follow a player on social media without ever having seen one of her matches.
It is at this point that Mirandola's idea comes into play: using the protagonists' digital communities to broaden the movement's audience.
The choice of volleyball also has a commercial perspective. In an interview with Alley Oop–Il Sole 24 Ore , Enzo Barbaro , CEO of the Lega Volley Femminile, explained his willingness to earn less from media rights to increase visibility and leverage marketing rights.
Greater exposure can in fact help make the championship more attractive to sponsors and partners, even if the results must be measured over time.
For women's football, which has already built a largely free offering, this could be a further step worth considering.
How much impact could bringing some matches directly into the spaces where the public already sits have?
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