The Future for Women’s Sport is a one day conference from SportBusiness Group, in association with the Women’s Sports Foundation and sponsored by Scottish Widows. It will bring together the leading lights from both the commercial sports world and sports administration

With only five years to go until London stages the Olympic Games, women’s sport in Britain remains under-represented on almost every measure – from participation to sponsorship, athlete earnings to media coverage.
Women are substantially less active than men with over 80% not doing enough activity to maintain their health. Most worryingly, the biggest gender gap is among the 16 – 24 age groups with only a quarter of women regularly participating in sport.

At the other end of the spectrum within elite sport, the picture is equally disturbing. £millions are spent marketing products and services though sponsorship of mainstream, male centred sports whilst some women’s teams struggle to raise the tiny amounts it takes to survive. The highest paid sportswomen still earns only 20% of her male counterpart and the proportion of sports media coverage dedicated to women’s sport remains a woeful 5%

The conference aims to address many of the issues facing womens sports and has a wide variety of speakers including Roger Mosey, Director of Sport BBC, Mandy Ayres, Nike and Dame Kelly Holmes. And is further endorsed at the highest level by Prime Minister Gordon Brown who will be opening the conference.

Factfile:
When: 15th November 2007
Where: Emirates Stadium, London
Info: www.womeninsportconference.com ^[1]

Danielle Sellwood, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine